


The Other Side of the Hourglass

by Carib0u



Series: The Lives of our Days [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Deconstruction, Eventual Romance, F/M, Humor, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22435303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carib0u/pseuds/Carib0u
Summary: After the devastation of the second Voldemort war, a powerful ritual gives Harry Potter a chance to re-do his Hogwarts years. Of course, he'll need his best friend Hermione if he's going to succeed, and the ritual only sent one person back. But Harry has a plan!
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Series: The Lives of our Days [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1971301
Comments: 46
Kudos: 76





	1. A Rude Awakening

When she started to wake, Hermione Granger could only think, in a muddled way, that she was rather cold.

In her confused state, she forgot about the whole magic thing and thought she'd fainted in the bath. Even when her memory started to catch up with her, it wasn't clear any of it was more than some sort of long, convincing dream.

The last thing she remembered was being on a train ... opening a door to see a boy dressed like a homeless person, with uncombed black hair, bent spectacles, and a strange look on his face. She had been on a train, right? Well, it could all be part of the dream. But anyway, in the dream, or whatever, he'd been far too eager to invite her in, and even chased away a red-haired boy who asked to sit with them, claiming the other cars were filled.

"Liar," the strange boy had said as he manoeuvred the ginger boy out of the doorway, slammed it, and used a magic wand — that was what those sticks were, in the dream, anyway — on it. Then sat back down with a self-satisfied grin that seemed a little manic. Well, so did everything else about him.

Then what had happened? After a bit of small talk, entirely nervous on her part, he'd said ... what? She concentrated. Ah.

"Sorry, Hermione." Exactly what you would wish the last thing you remember hearing to be.

Then a red light, then a little pain like being punched in the solar plexus, then lights out.

She was almost afraid to open her eyes, especially since she could feel the cold floor beneath her body, and more than that, feel the cold air passing over it. She could feel the vibration of what must, indeed, be a train through the floor. What she couldn't feel was even a thread of clothing.

She opened her eyes only a slit, and slowly. Even without moving, she could tell she was, in fact, lying on a floor stark naked. It was a little harder to say for sure without opening her eyes fully or moving, but she seemed to have been painted all over with some sort of finger-painted designs. Her parents had always told her Satanist abductions were a myth, but perhaps they hadn't known everything.

She took a chance, finally, and opened her eyes. Without moving her head, she could see the strange boy was still there. Well, if she was going to admit this wasn't all a dream, he did have a name. Harry Potter, a figure out of one of her textbooks. She had even asked another boy, a somewhat shy and pudgy kid named Neville, about the incident that made Potter famous enough to be in schoolbooks. They'd talked while she helped him find a toad, though she'd upset Neville a little by assuming what turned out to be his pet, Trevor was going to be used for fresh potions ingredients.A natural mistake.

Nervously, and only after telling Hermione it was a secret, he'd said his grandmother had claimed the Potters used some sort of family blood magic, and that was what killed the rogue sorcerer Dark Lord, not any demigod behaviour by baby Harry. "But talking about blood rites isn't strictly legal," Neville had added.

 _Well, suspicions confirmed, Neville._ Potter was literally dripping blood in a circle around Hermione and chuckling. _Frankly, if you are going to do this sort of thing, even if you're quite young,_ she thought, _I am going to say you are "cackling" instead._ With that thought, she noticed he was turning around toward her and re-shut her eyes.

Fortunately, making a blood circle turns out to take a fair amount of time, so when she thought she heard him moving away again, she opened her eyes again and slowly moved her head a little to the side. She noticed she was inside concentric blood rings. She could also, now, read the labels on the ingredients of this ... what was it, a human sacrifice? A sex ritual? She reminded herself that her only goal was making a break for it safely, which meant no shuddering or other sudden movement.

Apparently, he had unicorn blood in one ring, phoenix blood in another, and had been cutting his own hand with some sort of athame on this pass, then healing himself occasionally. As for the finger-paint, well ... Near the little pot of paste, the empty vials she could see had phoenix tears, four-leafed clovers, something just labeled "Lethe," and ... and ... _oh my._

In a row, she saw:

"Hermione's Diary."

"Hermione's Tears."

"Hermione's Hair."

"Hermione's Nails."

"Hermione's Skin."

Squinting, she made out the last two, and her eyes widened.

"Hermione's Blood (Heart's)"

"Hermione''s Blood (Womanly)"

Okay, she decided. This tears it.

She had already noticed Potter was starkers as well, except for a jet black cloak, and feared for her chastity, but that might be the least of her worries. The notion of dashing out naked into atrain corridor filled with pre-teens and teens of both sexes would have normally paralysed her, but when push came to shove it wasn't a fate worse than Ritual Death, she discovered.

Seizing the moment, She rolled over and dived for the door handle, smearing the blood rings in the process. Potter hadn't noticed for a second, because he was finishing a round of incantation. When he saw her trying and failing to open the door, he shrieked.

"My God! Hermione, that was the only chance! You've ruined the ritual! You're ... you're gone! I'll never see you again, not alive!"

His freakishness had had to take a back seat, as the strangest feeling Hermione ever experienced in her short life had overwhelmed her. It might be a delayed reaction from his incantation, since it seemed to pass through her from the direction of the now destroyed circles. It was almost as if she had two minds in her body, struggling for control, both confused, and somehow the other one was very familiar.

Finally, it subsided, and she could focus on the meaning of his latest rant. She was going to die, after all. Well, not without pounding on the door of the compartment and screaming for help.

"I've silenced it, of course," she heard. "But it doesn't matter. Nothing does, really." Then: "Look, you should sit. We ought to talk, at least. I'm not going to harm you, I would never do that."

Though still frantic, and thinking about how to acquire the athame, she turned around. Only now did she notice the compartment was bigger than it should be, had no seats, and in fact was empty of all but her, Potter, and the ritual supplies. And with a terrible sigh, she saw Potter vanish them as well, all but a few vials. He took one and said, "Engorgio," and it grew to the size of one of the missing seats, which is what he changed it into, somehow.He gestured invitingly to the seat, then noticed Hermione was finally covering herself with her hands. In what he probably thought was a gentlemanly gesture, he took off his cloak and handed it to Hermione. She whipped it around herself, then looked at him. For a boy who looked to be nine or ten years old, his visible male reaction looked particularly obscene to her, somehow.

Realising after a pause what was bothering her, Potter cut a little of his hair off with the knife (which then vanished somewhere before she could track it) and pressed it somehow into another one of the vials. It became soft like cloth and he shaped it with more incantations into a cloak like the one he'd given to Hermione. After he put it on, he looked down at himself and added, "It's an effect of the potions ... now the ritual's ruined it'll go away in a bit."

Hermione found the nerve somewhere to ask where her clothes were. It turned out, Potter had put their clothes in their trunks, then shrunk everything in the compartment, including the seats, and stored them in the next compartment over. "Nothing not ritually pure is allowed in a ritual space."

"Wonderful," Hermione replied. Potter approached her, and she still couldn't see the athame anywhere. Alas. She was about to charge him, anyway, as he touched her head with his wand and used yet another incantation. This one seemed to summon a raw egg on top of her head, from the sensation she had. Then she noticed she couldn't see herself, or only vaguely.

"Sit there, and I'l be back with the trunks and seats," he said, pointing at the seat.And then he vanished.

When she tried the door again, of course, it wouldn't open.

Potter came back after a short wait. She had actually seen the bare compartment slowly shrinking back to its original size. Despite her fear and anger, it was fascinating, she had to admit. When the door opened, she felt a compulsion like a push that let him get all the way in and lock it again before she could try to flee. After making them both fully visible, he got rid of the magicked seat with a wave of his wand and then expanded the original seats, the trunk racks, and the trunks. He opened her trunk and her clothes were on top. He left them in a pile on the seat where she'd been sitting, pants and bra on top, and turned his back to open his. "I won't look," she heard him say.

 _What a gentleman!_ She thought sarcastically. **_Now_** _, he won't look? After knocking me out, stripping me naked, putting me spread-eagled on the floor and rubbing potioned finger-paint into my private parts?_ But she had no better idea than to get dressed, so she did. It was a huge relief. On afterthought, she put her school robes on over a tee-shirt and shorts. They had to be no more than a couple of hours away from the station in Hogsmeade. That made her think of _Hogwarts: A History,_ which made her think of _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ , where she'd first read about Potter.

She thought of how she'd have to amend the section on the Potters to add that the boy became an insane cultist as he got older. The thought made her quietly laugh.

"What?" she heard Potter ask.

"Nothing," she replied. A little anger finally surfaced. "I was just thinking how they'll have to revise _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ to say Harry Potter grew up to be a sick _freak_ who does blood rituals, is all." _Oh, wait. No, no, no! With a potential killer you do_ ** _not_** _set them off,_ she thought _._ But set him off, she had.

The look on Potter's face at the word "freak" was a sight not to behold. She felt the inside of the compartment shaking -- or was it just her? It took him a while, and a quite visible struggle, to gain control of himself again. "I suppose … no, I know that it must look that way to you. Look, if the ritual had worked, I wouldn't have needed to explain anything. I didn't bother thinking about how it would look to you, because you weren't supposed to wake up. I should have stunned you harder, you're surprisingly resistant."

But unfortunately for him, she'd seen a flash of silver as he arranged his trunk.

Apparently, Potter had unlocked the door after all, as a woman with a cart full of sweets and sandwiches came in. This was Hermione's chance. She paid no attention to Potter, who was mumbling to himself behind her.

"You must help me!" Hermione said, looking the older woman in the eye. "This boy kidnapped me and assaulted me. He's insane, you must tell the driver or the prefects or someone! He's trapped me in this car!"

"Two pasties it is, dear," she said. Potter paid her after taking another two for himself and two small mugs of tea.

"No!" Hermione cried, "Please, you must help me." She grabbed the woman's arm.

Unfortunately, she just patted Hermione's hand and said something soothing, then left with surprising agility.

"It's like you didn't hear me say _Confundo_ , Hermione. She didn't hear a word you said. No one will," she heard.

Potter was smiling but it was more of a sad smile than a smirk.

"You _can_ leave, you know. I don't need you to be here, not anymore. It's not like I would have kept you from going to the loo or something."

"Oh?" Hermione demanded. "Didn't you need Hermione's Urine for your bloody rituals?"

"Already had it. Saliva, too. It's in the paste." _Stop talking to him,_ she thought, feeling a little ill.

Then, after a pause, "I wonder if it really did fail. I mean, entirely. It sure felt like it was working."

Potter looked at her intently, then searched for and took a couple of books out, but left the trunk open. She could barely see a hint of silver in one corner.

"Well, if you _don't_ need it, I'll go try to pretend I have any human dignity left and visit the loo," she said, pushing past Potter in a huff, and hiding her hand in his trunk from view with her body. She stalked through the door. She passed the treat cart, and had an idea.

"Here you go, Potter, it's some strange sort of jelly babies," she called out when she returned. She lobbed a box of "Every Flavour Beans" at Potter, underhand. With good reflexes, he caught the box, but it occupied his hands and attention just long enough. Hermione pinned the smaller boy's knees with hers, pushed him roughly against the wall with her left hand, preventing him from reaching his wand, and with her right, held the athame steady, pointing at his left eye.

"Can you _Confundo_ this?" she asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody promised it was a _good_ plan, mind you.


	2. The Table Turns

To Hermione's surprise, Potter wasn't fazed. "What's your goal here, Hermione?" he asked, calmly.

"My goal? My goal?" She didn't like the hysterical tone, so she dialed it down a bit. Keeping control of the situation was her only priority. "My _goal_ is to move us - slowly - to the door. Your wand can stay with me." Suiting her actions to her words, she snatched the wand without looking, and pocketed it. "Then, my _goal_ is to yell for help without your madness and mind tricks, you disgusting _freak_!"

"Won't work." Though he predictably flinched at the word, he was still calm. "First of all, that's the one thing I can't allow. It's better to risk dying than exposure. At least that's a quicker way of getting to the same destination. Second of all, you may or may not have noticed that I'm a little … depressed. I don't have anything to lose, now. Third of all, if you just blind me, I have an amazing tolerance for pain and I can still overpower you before you get to my other eye. And if you kill someone with an athame, that's a ritual slaying, and nothing in the world will keep a muggleborn who does that away from the Kiss. You won't even be considered fit for the Veil. Especially for killing an 11-year-old Boy Who Lived and proving once and for all that everything the Dark side says about muggleborns is all too true. Won't _that_ make a brilliant addition to _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_?"

Hermione felt really sick.

 _Okay,_ she thought to herself _. Being completely mad clearly gives you unexpected advantages in bizarre situations. I can work with this. He can't - can he? - keep me under his thumb forever_. With what she hoped was a bit of grace, she handed the lunatic his wand back and slumped in the corner. To her shame and despair, she could feel tears she hadn't even known she was holding back running down her face, which she slowly hid with her trembling hands.

"Now," she heard, "None of that. As I suggested earlier, why not talk it out? I will have to swear you to secrecy, but that shouldn't be a problem …"

Recovering herself a little, she interjected, "And just how would you do that? According to the textbooks - and I've read every single one of them twice - there are certainly spells and potions to compel such a thing for a little while, but the only thing that would possibly work long-term would be an Unbreakable Vow, and you don't seem to have a person handy to be our Binder, now do you? Also, it goes without saying that I would never risk my life or my magic just to hear you raving about your sick fixations, so it's a double non-starter, frankly."

To her surprise, Potter smiled. "I still think we're doomed without your special knowledge — okay, not us, per se, but a lot of the others I want to save — but I had forgotten why I really need you. You're as savvy as ever and you're only eleven! Well, nearly twelve, but still…" He moved his arm towards Hermione, who flinched away like a frightened animal and pushed herself further into the corner.

Backing off, Potter tried another tack: "Okay, swear on your honour?"

Hermione shook her head, firmly.

"Fine." Potter ran his hand through his hair, with a tired sigh. "i'll just tell you. If I can't persuade you not to blab, I guess it's on me."

 _Okay_ , thought Hermione. _It can't hurt to get more information, given I can't run for help._

"First of all," began Potter, "I have travelled back in time spiritually, using a ritual that I worked out with … well, you and a friend of ours you don't know named Luna. Where I came from, we had just missed most of what would have been our seventh year at Hogwarts. We were fighting the Dark Lord Voldemort …"

"Oh, is that his name?" she interjected, unable to help herself. Potter nodded.

"Anyway, not only did the fight kill a lot of our friends and relatives, but no sooner had he hit the ground than his followers and hidden supporters moved to worm their way back into control of Wizarding Britain. We were urged to take our awards and shut up, especially you. It seemed like everything we did was pointless, I mean, the purebloods didn't need the excuse of the _Imperius_ anymore, now that their out-of-control leader wasn't around, making the situation intolerable for the majority of the tiny segment of the population that actually had any power." He paused and looked at her. "Which is why, out of desperation, we tried the ritual. But we could only get enough unicorn and phoenix blood, given willingly I mean, not to mention other requirements, to send one person back."

Smiling, he continued, "But that's where you and Luna came in. We came up with another ritual that would bring one of you back after I got here. Luna said it couldn't be her, it would interfere with her foresight. I don't know if that's true, or she just wanted to give us time together, given we'd finally…"

"Skip past what you're about to say, I am not interested," Hermione interrupted. Potter looked wounded, but she didn't care. Nothing said she had to put up with amorous maundering from a lunatic. Especially, if his story had any truth in it, a seventeen-year-old of-age wizard lunatic, wooing an eleven-year-old schoolgirl. But to expect any sense or decency from a lunatic would be pointless, so she should be as grumpy as possible in hopes it would spur him to do as she said.

"Fine," he said. "Anyway, we collected what you saw in the vials, and added it to the ritual at our end…"

"Wait. Wait." Hermione didn't mind interrupting again. Now, at least, she could say his story was _definitely_ a lie. That probably called for bringing it to halt.

"You said you sent your soul or your memories or something back. That implies, does it not, that nothing material came with you? So how do you account for the vials being here?"

"Well, it's tricky," Potter responded. "Roughly, I had the same runes drawn on my body with the same paste — we designed everything so it wouldn't interfere with the send-back ritual. I managed to find the non-Hermione materials when I came back, a week ago. Then, after I stunned you, I magically extracted the required materials from your body, and using the image of your older self imbued in me by the ritual in the future, I transfigured everything into the corresponding body fragments of your future self. I even recovered the future entries in your diary after I made a _Gemino_ copy. That made it your future self's diary before I ground it up. Clever, no?"

"Disturbing? Yes, definitely," she responded. Then she had an awful realisation. "Wait, if that's true why did you go spare when I broke the circles and ruined the ritual? It sounds like everything you did you could re-do. Meaning, you're a continual threat, right?"

Potter looked startled. "Well, technically, I suppose. The astrological conditions happened to be very favourable today … and getting things like uncursed unicorn blood and phoenix anything isn't exactly easy or inconspicuous. But I suppose you are largely correct." He sighed. "And the answer to why I 'went spare' is that I was _Confunded_ to believe it was my one shot at the ritual. It doesn't work, you see, unless you really _believe_." His emphasis on the last word made his point clear.

"By you?"

" _Confunded_ , you mean? Yeah."

 _Too bad,_ she thought _. If he needed a third party I might have been in the clear_.

"All right," Hermione began. "It's time to grasp the nettle here. What would have happened, in your own words, if I _hadn't_ woken up mid-ritual?"

"Well, you would have had your memories restored. And we'd be together. I'd have _my_ Hermione back." 

"Restored. Right. Even though I had never been _Obliviated_ in the first place. What a kind euphemism for your insanity. And by 'your Hermione' I assume you mean a grown woman you knew and apparently were infatuated with in … what, 1997?"

"Well, she's you, is the point …"

"She is? You've been back a week, you say. Haven't you already distorted the time-stream, especially today, enough that the Hermione you knew won't ever exist in this time? And if she's no different to me, why is she, not I, _your_ Hermione? Hmm? Why are you so desperate to get rid of me and replace me?"

"It's not like that!" he cried, petulantly.

"Oh, I think it's exactly like that. And that's not all you're on the hook for, lunatic. What is your -- as they put it -- blood status, again? Pureblood?"

"Half-blood, technically. Mum was a muggleborn like you."

"If she's anything at all like _me_ , she's turning in her grave about now. You managed to achieve what even 'Vol de mort' couldn't do — what they gave their lives to prevent." She deliberately didn't pronounce the "t." There was no point in not showing she was fluent in French, she reasoned.

Potter's expression suddenly showed red-faced outrage. Hermione guessed she probably looked smug.

"Yes, you managed to kill the Boy Who Lived off. Permanently. As an innocent undersized schoolboy, too. Congratulations, hero."

"I did not! And even if you want to twist everything into some sick rationalisation that I did, hey, I was him. I was there, and let me tell you, even after getting to Hogwarts, it was not a life worth living. More days than not, I wished I could just lie down and die, actually."

"Still, Potter, you, a half-blood, killed the Boy Who Lived with a ritual. That makes it a ritual slaying. What were you telling me about all that?"

"That you could never prove it. Anyway, if you gave it away I'd end up in the Department of Mysteries, having all my secrets forcibly extracted before they obliviated me so thoroughly I wouldn't remember how to eat solid food. Which, I have pointed out, I won't allow."

"And what I won't allow, at all costs, is another ritual to kill me. I have, to quote your own words, nothing to lose, either."

Potter ran his hand through his hair again. He was starting to sweat visibly. "Look. It's not like that. You're not looking at the whole time-stream picture. And it's not like my young self's memories are completely gone, or I wouldn't be able to blend in, would I? I can consult them … it's like he's a portrait in my mind or something."

"Ah, yes. So after you kill me, I will still be able to be a portrait to serve your adult crush as you two use our eleven-year-old bodies to court and spark. I certainly look forward to an afterlife as a bloody portrait. How can I ever thank you enough?"

She deliberately paused and sipped her mug of tea, which had become room temperature. Fortunately, she didn't mind tepid tea. She eyed one of the pasties in a speculative way. As she said all that, however, she had felt a twinge. It reminded her of the feeling she'd had after she broke the ritual, in fact. She had a sudden suspicion that she couldn't afford to test at the moment. _Or could she?_ The instant she had that thought, she 'felt' another one. _Hello, Hermione._ The ensuing mental conversation gave her time to finish one of the pasties and nibble on the other one a bit.

For the first time since meeting Harry Potter, Hermione smiled, although tentatively. "Wait one second, Potter," she said. "Two can play at this game, it turns out. Your ostensible reason for needing to kill me off and replace me with _your_ Hermione is that you need _her_ specialised knowledge?"

He nodded.

"Well, good news. Thanks to your aborted ritual, I know exactly what you mean, now. I find a part of my mind is somehow partitioned off, and I detect a personality there, brimming with thoughts and memories. I would normally assume I was going utterly mad, but with you there as a handy comparison, I can see I have a long way to go to get there. You won't have to take my word for it. Ask me something only _your_ Hermione would know."

"Fine. Who did she get together with during the war, and what does she think of him?"

"Ronald Billious Weasley. And while she doesn't have the hatred and contempt for him you have, which is one of many things she and Luna learned to live with, she admits it wasn't her finest hour. She threw in that you ended up with his little sister for quite a while."

"Ginevra," he sighed. It seemed to have put him wrong-footed, but he added, "Okay, I can see that. God knows I don't hate Ginny, either. It's exactly as she says, it just wasn't my finest hour. Still, I don't regret the thing with Cho Chang, but I do the business with her."

"She says that's okay, as she wouldn't trade away a minute of the attention she got being Victor's date at the Yule Ball, either."

She took advantage of the pause in the conversation to eat a few bites of the pastie. When she looked up again, her smile was less tentative and more triumphant.

"At any rate, your number one reason for murdering me just flew out the window. Your Hermione says she can teach me anything you want me to learn in a reasonable time. Enough, at any rate, to save anyone you could have saved if you had obliterated me. She also points out, helpfully, that if you had come back a bit further and saved Pandora … Ah, I see, Luna's mother … that would have been rather nice."

Now, for the first time, Potter did look guilty. "It made the whole ritual less of a sure thing, and I decided I probably couldn't do much before I got the letter, anyway. Before that, the thugs I was living with kept me on a very short leash indeed." He nonetheless continued, "Still I don't know how I can face Luna. Well, the best I can do now is making sure she knows she has friends now. I think we need to go to Devon, Ottery St. Catchpole, if I can somehow persuade you to trust me."

"You? Never. The old Hermione's mental portrait, absolutely. For one thing, she can't disobey me or lie to me. Two traits one wishes you had, Cultist Potter." Thankfully, she didn't say the thought that inspired, out loud. Perhaps there was a way, perhaps not, that she could turn her Hogwarts situation into a real triumph.

To distract him, she changed the subject. "Is this Luna … Lovegood? That cannot seriously be her name -- it's like something out of a Bond movie … hell, something out of _Casino Royale_ \-- all right, older Hermione, whatever you say. Anyway is she another schoolgirl you're going to inappropriately pursue? Is your undying love for your Hermione subject to two-timing?"

"No, no, she's like a little sister."

"According to old Hermione, that's precisely how you described _her_ to the Weasley boy. Given your propensity to _incest_ , I will take that as a 'yes'."

"Seriously? Take it any way you wish, but I won't be pursuing her _that_ way. Eww. And mocking me when I have lost the love of my life -- twice -- recently? You are definitely not as nice as your older counterpart, Hermione."

"She says, 'simply more honest, and coddles you less, Harry'." Then she changed the subject again. "Did one or more of the books you took out of the trunk have the rituals you used in it?"

Potter looked confused, and not at all in a mood to be cooperative.

"I mean, you want my help, my trained help. My roving, inquiring mind you love so much needs this information to be satisfied and cooperative. Give, please," she said, holding out her left hand. She figured always having her right hand free was still a good idea with her deranged companion up to whatever insane plan he'd switched to.

As Potter handed her the books, she placed them next to her on the seat. Then she finished the pastie and wiped her hands carefully with a pre-moistened serviette she fetched out of her pocket. Opening one of the books, she demanded he show her the ritual he'd been using. It was the very last spell in the blood rituals section, and she felt extremely triumphant on learning that the very last part of the ritual -- the part she'd aborted -- included elements of an exorcism ritual. It had been a wild, mad guess, but she'd been correct. She controlled herself to keep from looking at Harry Potter in a speculative way, but she couldn't conceal her exalted mood. Potter looked confused and nervous.

 _We've already established the rules of the game,_ thought Hermione _. Let's see how much you enjoy playing, shall we?_

At that moment, they both heard the announcement that they were arriving at Hogsmeade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Some fan fiction has, e.g., Harry send his thoughts/soul/memories back in time and a few then "bring back", e.g., Hermione, Luna or Ginny. It's usually done with some potion or incantation or a ritual that takes no props and lasts ten seconds. My assumption is that yanking someone's soul or personality from six or more years in the future back to their body in first through fourth year is major magic that would take a little more than that. It's definitely not as simple as restoring obliviated memories - and we're told in the books that _that_ is a very daunting task even for powerful wizards.**   
>  **This is Hermione showing you exactly how that looks from the other side of the equation. Put yourself in her shoes and imagine how you'd react!**


	3. My Last Sorceress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,  
> Looking as if she were alive. I call  
> That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands  
> Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 
> 
>   
> **\--Robert Browning**

The more Hermione quizzed "Loony" Potter, as she thought of him, the less inclined she was to go to some authority about him. Young or old, you had to admit, he'd not had the easiest life. And the events he was so desperate to prevent were, indeed, evil by anyone's standards. In fact, she was a bit ashamed of herself, given the bulk of them were aimed at people like herself, simply for their condition of birth. Which added urgency to the fact that they'd all had nothing to look forward to on that front after the war they'd very narrowly squeaked through. Her older self, dubbed "Portrait Hermione," also chastised her for the use of "Loony," as that was something that would hurt Luna if she heard it as much as hearing "freak" did Potter.

She was even more chastised when she found out that "freak" was what Potter thought his name was when he was a young child until primary school forced his abusive relatives to admit he'd had actual parents who'd given him a proper name at birth. "Freak" was also the name used when they screamed at him and locked him in a dark little cupboard under the stairs, even as a toddler, then starved and even beat him a little later. In those circumstances, Hermione knew, she'd have gone spare in general, and especially hearing that word applied to herself. It was worse than if Potter had been calling her "mud blood." 

With no real outlet for all her frustrations, she pledged herself to be really driven in her research. As a peace offering, she went with Potter on the boat to Hogwarts and didn't quarrel when the hat assigned her to Gryffindor, even though she knew her nemesis was headed there as well.

It was at breakfast of their very first day that she actually had her first warm feelings for Oh-Very-Well-Not-Loony-I-Suppose-If-You-Must-Insist Potter. He deliberately sat down where there were only two places, side by side. When the redheaded boy he'd ushered away from their compartment showed up, quite late, he had to sit a ways away from them. Though he had only a half-hour for breakfast, he managed to make up for lost time quickly — and savagely.

"That," observed Potter, suddenly, "is Ron Weasley." Hermione shuddered.

"When | came back," he said conversationally, "he was telling everyone he had decided to offer you protection as one of his Muggle-born mistresses. And how lucky you were to get to share his bed with -- at the time -- her.” With that, he pointed at a very pretty older girl at the Ravenclaw table. "His older brother's mistress, technically. He'd promised to marry her, but he bounced back into a solid Ministry career, so marrying a half-blood just wasn't on. Family is important to the Weasleys, which the brothers express by sharing non-pureblood girls. Being a half-blood, | wasn't a guaranteed protector, of course. Despite being an Order of Merlin winner with two other votes on the Wizengamot. That's how quickly blood purity came roaring back. In fairness, Bill, Charlie, and his parents wanted him to marry you as a second wife, just to keep the Weasley line from inbreeding itself out of existence."

The sour but embarrassed look he got from Hermione at that was all the thanks she planned to give the prat. Then she discovered girls who were just portraits existing only in her mind could still giggle.

"... Starting with the brains, obviously,” Potter continued, smirking, as they watched the worst table manners on Earth enjoying themselves in a completely unselfconscious fashion.

Speaking of her double, however ... "Potter, | consult with 'your' Hermione constantly, | hope you realise. In addition to teaching me Occlumency, she is going to give me every tip and shortcut possible for every class, so we can concentrate on your projects. We'll probably have to do the same for you. In return, we need to get your money tout suite, Potter. And | want an unlimited budget. Unless you absolutely cannot afford it, if | ask for something, you buy it."

Potter simply nodded, but then he paused. "Is it too much to ask to call me by my first name, Hermione? You sound like Pansy Parkinson as it is."

She paused, annoyed. In truth, it was probably for the best as long as it didn't give him ideas. "Very well, Harry. This budget thing is going to come up today, actually."

Harry was nonplussed. "It is?" He looked at her suspiciously. "How will we manage that, given we're first years and it's a week-day, to boot?"

"Well, for one thing, because she didn't want to encourage your already bad habits, your Hermione never told you a very salient fact." She turned completely toward Potter, eager to see his reaction. She was rewarded when Harry looked over at her impatiently.

"... Binns never, and I mean never, takes attendance. He can't. He doesn't know any names or even how many students he has," she said with a smirk.

"But ..." Harry began.

"I know what you're going to say, Harry. What if one of the students turns us in? Well, that will never happen. First of all, everyone skives off of HoM at some point. That's when your Hermione took her breaks in third year. She always waited until you and Ron fell asleep. Secondly, just like Herbology, we have it with Hufflepuff. Can you see them narcing?" Hermione asked.

"I thought for whatever evil reason we had all our classes with Slytherin," Harry observed.

"More than our share, perhaps, but no, Harry."

"So, what's the exact plan here?"

"We tell Professor Sprout we need to leave a bit early — your family business, a floo call in the common room, and so on."

"What will we really do?" Harry wondered.

Amused, Hermione pretended to ponder that. "Your family business, a floo call in the common room, and so on, actually."

At his bemused expression, she added. "We leave Herbology early, hit the common room. We head out to Ottery St. Catchpole, where my contractor and his assistant are."

"Hermione," Harry interrupted, "the floo in the common room only allows incoming calls."

Hermione was even more amused, and showed it. "It does. That's why Mr. Lovegood will call through it around the time we should be able to get there after Herbology. if someone does that, and you voluntarily move into the flame, they can pull you through. Then we simply skip lunch, skive off History of Magic, and are late for Care. It's our first day, so no wonder you, Neville and I got lost."

"Neville?"

"He's how we get back. We'll have Mr Lovegood floo call the common room and Neville can pull us back," she explained.

"If you can do that, why wouldn't someone like the twins have figured it out by now."

"I think," Hermione said, "you may be a bit disappointed in the twins this time around. They've got the almost-but-not-quite bullying thing down, but not the finesse they developed later. Remember they're only thirteen, and frankly, I am far more mature at eleven than they'll probably be until they're in fifth year. That said, your father and friends most certainly took advantage of the common room floo escape, quite frequently. It just didn't need marking on the Map, because it's not a hidden passage."

From the stunned expression on Harry's face, Hermione could tell he hadn't really assimilated her statement that she was in constant communication with her portrait self. He shrugged. "While it will be great to meet Luna, how do you know our contractor will be there in Ottery St. Catchpole, and who is he?"

"Xenophilius Lovegood is, in fact, our contractor, and Luna will be assisting him."

"What on Earth are we contracting them for?"

"Portrait," she replied, tersely.

"Wait," he said, shocked. "Xeno can do portraits."

"Mr Lovegood is one of the best creators of wizarding portraits in Magical Britain, Harry. And Luna is his ace in the hole. Basically, according to Portrait Hermione, she sees absolutely everything. In a way, all her creatures are how she sees the auras Pandora trained her in understanding, but there's a deeper insight that either the creatures exist on a very hard-to-detect plane, or they somehow wander in and out of ours depending on the aura. Mr Lovegood does all the measurements, you'll repeat your trick with my bodily fluids and so on, he'll create the portrait, then Luna will essentially bless it with ... well, it could be Seer magic or even fairy magic, no one ever could prove one or the other for sure. But the final touches are what make their portraits come to life. It will look like Luna's barely touching it up, but most of what she paints we can't detect. Only occasionally does it fall within our range."

"Umm, Hermione ..." Harry began, "who are we doing portraits of?"

"Us, silly."

Harry looked shocked yet again. "You think we're about to die?"

"If I thought that, Harry," she began with a grin, "I wouldn't have you come anywhere near it with your disturbing extractions and transfigurations. This is for older Hermione -- and older you."

"I wouldn't have thought," Harry said, thoughtfully, "this was any sort of priority, let alone something you needed a budget for."

"Well, older Hermione suggested them, and Mr Lovegood is blackballed so many different ways it's a wonder he and Luna don't starve. We're going to pay him the going rate for the best portraits. It's only fair."

* * *

Everything fell out the way Harry vaguely remembered it and the way Hermione planned it.

Charms included Professor Flitwick falling off his chair when Harry's name was arrived at. Neither of them volunteered a thing in Potions. Harry answered Snape's unfair questions tersely and correctly, ignored unfair point losses, led Hermione in creating their potion perfectly and as quickly as allowed (they saved time on the preparation), and managed to save Neville from melting his cauldron down. They also refused to lift their eyes the entire class, no matter what Snape did or said.

Professor Sprout had no issues with them leaving early the first day, which was just an introduction and reading class. Xeno Lovegood floo-called just as they reached the common room, out of breath, and pulled them through to the Rook.

Harry looked surprised to see a pensieve, but Hermione explained he needed it for The Quibbler. Xeno and Luna went to set the table and prepare tea. She put her hands on her hips as she addressed Harry.

"Other Hermione is a little mad at herself for not telling you this, but you were also a little dense about the Lovegoods. So was she, she's not denying how she used to go at Luna, but still... The Quibbler is quite a dangerous enterprise, and no one really knows if Pandora's death was an accident or not. All of his stories are sort of 'in code,' Harry."

"For instance, the Rotfang conspiracy involved a major challenge by a really dreadful Goblin family of which he was the patriarch. Their philosophy was, give the Death Eaters whatever they want, as long as their allies at Gringott's get a cut, and everyone gets a heads-up when Voldemort starts rolling up Wizarding Britain, so they can transfer all their gold out. And that utter evil bitch Umbridge literally did say, at a cosy event she and Fudge were at, that goblins should be baked into pies and fed to Muggle-borns. Lots of people heard her, but because they were all the 'right people,' no one said a word. No telling tales out of school for Pureblood Britain."

"Next, you'll say Sirius was really Stubby Boardman."

This finally made Hermione break down laughing.

"In all the time you spent with him, are you saying you never asked him?"

Harry looked at her quizzically.

"Sirius wanted to go beyond riding his tough motorcycle, living with the Potters and snubbing his parents, tormenting the Slytherins, and so on, Harry. He found out his mother didn't have the authority to truly kick him out of the Black family. But his grandfather, Arcturus, most certainly did -- he was Lord Black. He contacted Sirius saying playing muggle rock-and-roll under his given name would be a family deal-breaker. When Sirius suggested a rather thin disguise, a glamour, and the absurd name 'Stubby Boardman and the Hobgoblins' for what amounted to the Marauders and friends screwing around with instruments and singing off-key, apparently old Arcturus actually cracked a smile for the first time in a decade. Yes, I am saying Sirius was really Stubby Boardman. Whenever he was about to get caught, he'd have one of his friends take Polyjuice so Sirius Black and Stubby Boardman could be in the same picture. Luna pointed out the discrepancy the first time she saw one of those. The aura was different from another wizarding picture Sirius took with Mr Lovegood in school."

"Anyway, the other insurance Mr Lovegood has is heavy use of a pensieve. In dangerous cases, he leaves a copy with Madam Bones at the DMLE. Sometimes he even sent some memories to the ICW."

At her next train of thought prompted by Portrait Hermione, she felt a lump in her throat. "And Harry, we don't really understand what Pandora, Xeno, and Luna were like before the tragedy. Pandora held the entire thing together, and with her gone, the Lovegoods we met were, by all accounts, a pale shadow of what they'd been before. A lot of magical naturalists commented that when Luna was seven and eight she was already a seasoned expedition member who pulled her weight. And no one of any age could top her in finding rare creatures."

"Now, I feel like meeting Luna is akin to meeting royalty," Harry joked.

"In some circles," Hermione replied, taking him seriously. "She's related to Ollivander, Trelawney, and Malfoy, and all three show up somewhere. Don't underestimate her. Also, she's quote 'as cute as a bug's ear.' Other Hermione begged copies of some of her childhood pictures. You two didn't even meet her until she was fourteen, and she's only ten now."

"You've come quite a ways since you were holding an athame up to my eyeball," was all Harry replied to that. Hermione blushed.

"Other Hermione really, really wants to mother her," she got out, before the Lovegoods came back and led them to the kitchen.

* * *

Tea didn't last very long. They all had a great deal to do and little time to do it. Hermione let Harry charm her to sleep and extract her various essences. They'd made a Gemino copy of her diary that morning, as well as one of the shabby notebooks Harry sometimes used as a journal. Harry had helped Portrait Hermione teach her younger self how to do the same for him after she charmed him to sleep. While he slept, they prepared Harry's wizarding canvas, and Xeno and Luna set up their preliminary sketching and brushing equipment. When Harry awoke, they were in the process of finishing a portrait preparing ritual that the two Hermiones had decided to merge with the same ritual Harry had tried to use on Hermione the day before. That everything had changed so much in a couple of days left Harry not knowing what to think about it all, Hermione decided, looking at his lost expression sympathetically. Mr Lovegood sketched out Harry's portrait, and Luna drew faint lines extending from various places on his body. For a second, Harry twitched and stared at the canvas.

"That felt like something moved out of me just then," he exclaimed. "But ... yes, it's still there," he continued, cryptically. 

"You probably shouldn't call the proper owner of that body an 'it,' Harry Potter!" Luna piped in, suddenly. Harry just stared at her, and Luna just smiled.

All of Harry's essences vanished at the end of the ritual. Mr Lovegood told him they'd gone into the paints and would make this portrait something beyond the normal ones.

Hermione knew now was not the time to tell Harry she'd taken and transfigured twice as much material as she needed for this ritual. Instead, she chose to answer Potter ... no, Harry's statement. "Not mine, unfortunately. We won't be able to communicate again until we pick up the portraits on Friday. We're taking care of last-minute business as we speak."

Harry wasn't nearly as observant of the finer details of rituals as Portrait Hermione, so it wasn't surprising he never noticed that the ritual for Hermione included a full exorcism. It would only confuse him, trying to figure out where souls came into it all.

Luna was as cute as advertised, and they spent half an hour drinking cocoa and colouring with her. Her crayons didn't seem to leave a mark until you viewed them through a strange set of spectacles called a "Spectre-Scope," but when you did, they were breathtakingly lovely colours more like oil pastels than wax crayons.

As they were preparing to leave, Luna stopped them. "Hermione!"

When Hermione turned around, she ran over to them and added, "You can hug me all you want, whenever you want."

From the look on her face as they did just that, Luna felt the same bliss she did.

* * *

The rest of the week was uneventful. It was clear Harry and Hermione were very close, but they were friendly to most of the students in their year, and many in the years above them. Harry refused to stand out in flying class, and basically did no better than Hermione. They were competent, solid fliers. Portrait Hermione had given her many tips, all of which made the process smoother. Defence Against the Dark Arts was treated like Potions. Neither of them volunteered anything or let their eyes move up from halfway towards the floor.

By the time Friday rolled around, their schedule was basically the same as Monday's, but since Potions and Herbology had switched times, they were unable to leave early. They were the first to leave, though, as they'd become as adept at taking down their equipment and cleaning up as they were at setting it up.

When they got to the Rook this time, there were two portraits under curtains. When Harry went to move the curtain off the portrait on the left, they heard a chuckle and someone saying, "Hello, brother." The portrait was astonishing, and calling it a work of art would have been a trivial insult, given it was that, but so much more.

The big surprise, however, came when Harry unveiled the second portrait, as it was an empty room.

Both Luna and Mr Lovegood laughed and invited them to go upstairs. When they reached the next floor they could hear voices on the other side of the Rook. As they got closer, Harry recognised Hermione's voice as it had been when he travelled back in time. She was arguing, shouting, discussing and laughing with a woman who sounded somewhat older than her.

"She and Pan are usually talking shop right around this time. I thought you should meet her in her element," he said, smiling. "Both of them, really.

When the two women in the large portrait that was the only object in the far room saw their visitors, they stopped talking. Pandora Lovegood greeted them effusively and was actually linked arm-in-arm with Hermione, who was beaming, too. Mrs Lovegood looked at Luna and said, "Hey, Luna-moon, would you mind terribly going downstairs for a while? It shouldn't take that long, perhaps a quarter of an hour?"

Luna's face almost looked like it wanted to be stubborn, but then she sighed and nodded. When they heard her reach the first floor, Hermione and Pandora both assumed very serious expressions.

"This isn't the kind of thing Hermione needs to be exposed to, either, but there's no choice," Pandora began without preamble. "Xeno, go get a couple of files about Minister's Specials. Sadly, they're going to be the key to solving some of the problems and mysteries going forward.

A 'Minister's Special' didn't sound that bad. Of course, it was vague enough to be a little ominous, Hermione mused.

"I heard rumours about it from Sirius and Remus," Harry said.

"It's not rumours, but reality," Mr Lovegood said, and looked tired.

Hermione controlled herself and didn't let her growing frustration show on her face.

Portrait Hermione looked at her younger dopple. "Let's not drag this out. A minister's special is when one of your victims resists you, and you pay the Minister a hundred thousand galleons, out of which he pays about a dozen other people. One of the victim's family members is dragged out of the home in the dead of night, usually a teenager or younger minor child. The child is kept overnight in a safe house and beaten. At that point, if the victim is seen as weak or pliable, they get a picture of the child after the beating. They notice a pink tag around one of the child's wrists, which is a sign that they are "eligible for a Minister's Special." Usually, that ends all resistance and the victim runs off, cringing, just glad they still have a child. If the victim is seen as an intractable enemy, or no examples have been made recently, then they don't bother with wizarding photos. They get the Special right away. The child is taken to Azkaban by the minister's most politically reliable Aurors, arrangements are made to have the guards away, and the child is left in an open cell in the most secure area. In the morning, the child's husk is collected and dumped on the doorstep where everyone passing by the residence can see it. Example made."

Mr Lovegood showed Harry and Hermione the clips he'd brought out. "These are just a couple among many dozen. The cause will usually be listed as spell damage from an accident. If you complain, you get a note, a pink note, saying the rest of your family are next. If you persevere, the reliable Aurors suddenly find you endangering the public and irrational, and have to accidentally kill you while you resist arrest. Anyone who tries to bring the subject up, ever, becomes the next victim, for free."

"Our best guess about all the pink is that Dolores started this," Mrs Lovegood added.

"It really would be typical for her," Harry agreed, while Portrait Hermione just nodded, and Hermione felt a little sick. Other than her, no one there looked at all surprised or shocked.

"And we needed to bring this up, why?" she demanded.

"Some of the families think it's more merciful to let the soulless children die, naturally, Hermione," Mrs Lovegood said, her face was serious but sympathetic. "Others disagree and will tend to them for as long as they may."

Harry looked even more baffled than she felt ... which was ... a clue, she realised. And not one she could discuss with Harry right now. She didn't even know if she felt better or worse.

Harry surprised Hermione by asking if there was an empty frame somewhere where he and Portrait Hermione could talk, privately. Mrs Lovegood laughed and told him she, of course, had the run of the house, and if they wanted, they could all meet up downstairs, with her occupying Portrait Hermione's easel.

By the time they reached the first floor and met up with Luna, Hermione thought she heard shouting from the second floor. Fifteen minutes later, Harry came down, looking grimmer than Hermione imagined he could.

"When was someone going to tell me Hermione's literal, actual soul is trapped in that portrait, again?" he demanded without preamble.

"I thought so," Mrs Lovegood answered, thoughtfully. "Don't blame Xeno or Hermione, Harry. They were just being careful. It's unstable having two souls in one body, as you should know very well, your whole life is a testimonial to that. There are a lot worse fates than being in a portrait. What does she say about all this?"

"You thought so?" Harry asked. "Then my question stands. Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Well, I wasn't sure, and I was afraid to ask Luna and _be_ sure. But Hermione just felt like ... more. Like there was so much more, there. It made me question how alive I normally feel."

"As to what I think, I told him some of it," Portrait Hermione said, suddenly appearing next to Mrs Lovegood. "I miss the camaraderie with my younger self a great deal. I really miss the mobility. I don't miss not being able to see anything, having to go through a medium to talk to anyone but Hermione, though. I can now read books, do research. Before we leave, put any books you want me to have in my library in the lower right set of shelves in the Lovegood library. They'll all be added to mine."

"But ... your _soul_ , Hermione!"

"Is safe as houses, and if it's not deliriously happy, it's mostly content. I'm not going slowly mad from boredom or confinement, if that's the issue. I used to say I could live doing nothing but research, and for the most part, that's just a fact."

Still angry, he turned on Hermione. It was very hard to see the small eleven-year-old when he was in this state. "Don't you think it's a bit imbalanced? I mean, I haven't even died yet, and somehow you've activated my portrait. By your logic, shouldn't it be the personality and soul of my younger self in there?"

"I ... no, I don't agree, Harry," Hermione answered, quietly.

"It's fine, and we'll be fine until things sort themselves out, brother." Harry's portrait, quiet until now, spoke up.

"He's right, Harry," Portrait Hermione chimed in. "He and I will be fine until things right themselves. Have faith in me, have faith in all of us."

From the look on his face, faith was as far from his mind as anything could ever be. Panic and betrayal were taking the coachman's seat.

At only eleven years of age, Hermione was being forced to shoulder burdens most adults would baulk at. "This must be exactly like how it was for Harry," she thought. The alternate time-stream Harry and Hermione talked about had seemed halfway to being a fairy tale. Not a very nice one, but also, not very real, nor very near. But, she decided, sometimes, when things were going to be just terrible anyway, you might as well get all the pain out of the way at once.

When Harry was looking around helplessly, but not at her, she took out her wand, gathered her courage, and pointed at him. In a medium voice, but firmly, she said, "STUPEFY!" As he crumpled to the ground, all she could say was "Sorry, Harry."


	4. Meeting Harry Potter

"Why on Earth did you do that, Hermione?" 

She looked over at the canvas where Older Hermione and Pandora were standing. The latter woman simply looked confused, but her older counterpart corrected her swiftly.

"She put enough into it to keep him unconscious the entire time. Sleeping charms are too easy to wake up from. If he could have brought himself to stun Hermione harder, we all wouldn't be here, unfortunately. So we owe little Hermione's life to Harry's unwillingness to hurt her. On the other hand, _he_ didn't use a sleeping charm, either. He needs to know how it feels to be stunned and replaced. If he still thinks he did the right thing, that's ... understandable, perhaps. His younger self really was miserable. But now he has a better basis to make those kind of decisions."

It was amazing how well the two Hermiones got along. It was like having an older twin sister.

"You know, I now think even if he'd succeeded older Hermione and I would have conspired against him and created this situation eventually ..."

"I'm not so sure," that woman said. "When things become frantic it's hard to sit and philosophise. He might have gotten me so involved in a war against the wizarding world that I didn't feel I could take a chance. I probably would have put it off till "after the war." I do that a lot."

With that, they discussed obliviation, memory travel, soul travel, time travel, dimension travel, what a person was, and other light topics. When they looked up, Mr. Lovegood and Luna had returned after quietly making everything ready. They led Hermione downstairs. Harry was naked and already painted with the required runes. Hermione had been tempted to insist she do it as payback, but realised that could be misconstrued as a sexual gesture on her part, which made her shudder, and that the next person she'd be talking to would feel as violated as she had, anyway. Of course, Luna probably enjoyed helping, but she was too innocent to worry about.

It fascinated Hermione to see how the ritual would have worked in her case, and she took copious notes. She felt pity for older Harry, no doubt, but it hadn't been long enough to let go of her anger and fear enough to sympathise with him. Putting him where he put Harry would be a good start to reconciliation. She, at least, would never have dreamed of obliviating him to let younger Harry be the sole occupant.

Everything worked perfectly. Mr. Lovegood sent a _Patronus_ to Deputy Headmistress McGonagal saying that the family business Harry Potter was doing had needed Hermione's help and run on so long they'd had to travel to the Lovegood residence to finish it. Without explaining further, he said Harry and Hermione would return to Hogwarts by Sunday night before curfew.

If McGonagal or Dumbledore wanted to make a fuss, they knew Mr. Lovegood would point out that pureblood students did things like this routinely, and make a bigger fuss, so the Quaffle was in their possession.

Hermione was going to have a hard time sleeping, and an easy time waking up too early, she decided. She was going to meet Harry Potter! _The real one_ she added.


	5. The Turn Finishes

As it turned out, Hermione couldn't get to sleep until early morning, and thus was in no shape to wake as early as she thought she would. She was woken by a gentle push on her shoulder, and her bleary eyes saw a familiar face, causing her to shrink back a little. But this face had a much gentler expression, with no trace of mania. Her anxiety started to ease, and excitement started welling up, but she made no outward movements.

"Sorry. Sorry about ... well, everything, really. But waking you up and scaring you. Anyway, the older you in the painting and the Lovegoods all said I should be the first person to talk to you today. Umm, can you sit up? Are you decent?"

Hermione pulled her robe together over her pyjamas and sat up, cautiously.

"Okay, this has to be said formally. The Potter family — of which there is only one of us left, or two, maybe — anyway, I owe you a favour for saving me from being imprisoned in my body or whatever was going on, and I'm sorry the mean other me tried to kill you because he didn't think either of us were real, and I owe you for that, too, and if I can't make it up to you then if I live to have a family they'll owe you a favour or two." He took a deep breath and sighed.

Hermione smiled. "Hi, I'm Hermione Granger," she offered, holding out her hand.

"Oh great," he surprisingly answered. "Okay, this is another thing they all agreed on, even other you, okay?"

Hermione was confused so didn't respond to that, when, shockingly, Harry Potter held her hand and kissed the top of it.

"Umm, I am not going to do things the way I would have done them, and not how older Harry wanted me to do them, either, so they suggested I learn ... manners. Older you says it will make you happy deep down but you won't admit it, and the Lovegoods say you have to know this stuff, and I mean you, too. Because the wizard world is a snake-pit and we don't want to be like Ron or ... well, I don't think the girls _have_ a Ron. But whoever they have that's closest to that you don't want to be like them. And we have to learn things like dancing and stuff. And older me wants us to become boyfriend and girlfriend and older you says that's unfair but we all have to be friends or we're all in trouble because only us two and the Lovegoods know about all the time stuff and that's illegal and the Un..."

"Breathe, Harry," Hermione said, giggling. "Are you like this because it's the first day in a week you could talk for yourself, or something?"

Harry blushed and nodded.

"They're called Unspeakables, and yes, they'd be trouble. Just a sec." She sat up straighter. "I, Hermione Granger, acknowledge the debt of the Potter family to me and my family, and I appreciate your courtesy, Harry."

Still blushing, and still nodding, Harry said nothing.

"And the reason we shouldn't listen to older Harry -- and he answers to you, you don't answer to him -- is that right now we don't know each other at all. So if we keep ourselves at a certain distance, then in a year or two when I found a boyfriend, and a year or so later if you found a girlfriend, we'd just be friends and one of us wouldn't be crying over it. That doesn't mean we won't be close friends, because we'll have to share a lot of secrets, and I think we'll have the same goals. And it's a little ... intimidating if you understand what that means, that both of our older selves think we're the best we can do for partners but unlike them, we're eleven. We might change completely now we have access to their memories of what went right and wrong."

She took his hand, ignoring his look of surprise. "Harry, you were starved of love, and that's as bad as being starved of food. My parents were very busy, I had no friends, and other kids called me ugly. Both of us are very lonely. That's really all I wanted to say. How is it, being in control again?"

"Don't get mad, but it wasn't all bad being a portrait in older Harry's mind. You know my life is a shambles, right? I mean when the usual awful things happened, I didn't have to deal with them, and he's way, way harder than I am. I didn't understand the ritual, I kind of guessed from what he asked me about he was trying to make you like I was, and that didn't seem right. But, ummm ..." Harry suddenly blushed wildly.

"Umm?"

"Nothing." Harry wouldn't meet her eyes. The light dawned.

"Honestly, Harry, however curious you were about what he was doing, you didn't miss anything. The first time you get a chance to see a naked girl, it should not be one as young as me, lying unconscious or frightened on a floor covered with blood. That would make you grow up to be abnormal. And I would be furious with you. Plus, I saw you that way and honestly, we were preoccupied with the ritual, and so was older Harry, with me. It wasn't an adult thing."

"He says older Hermione could read his mind."

"Boy's minds are really easy to read."

"I guess that's what she always said, too. It must be true."

"Embarrassing as it is, it leads to something we all have to discuss, keeping other people from reading your mind. The Lovegoods are going to lend you an amulet against that, but we have to find something from the Potters to replace it eventually. Dumbledore ..."

"Him!" Harry said, vehemently.

"Yes, him. He's quite a danger to all of us, and he reads students' minds, and he's not easy to hold to account. I would say never take the amulet off. And don't lose it, it belonged to Mrs. Lovegood."

Harry nodded. Then he asked, "Do you think we'll all get along?"

Hermione nodded in turn. "Well, we're doing fine, you and I. You're quite a relief after the other Harry. You seem to get along well with older Hermione and the Lovegoods, and older Harry ... well, he has no choice. He needs to be taught a lesson, but so do you. You can teach him what you learned — humility — because he's forgotten that lesson. He can teach you what you need to know to survive. My Hermione and I are way ahead of you and sorry to say, that means you need to work really hard with older Harry. But what she told me about you and school no longer applies. You aren't going back to the Dursleys even to visit, so no one will punish you for liking school any more. You won't be hanging out with Ron or anyone similar, because it could be your life if you do. It's like us being naked during rituals — we are all going to be far too busy to worry about nonsense."

"Ah, by the way, when I was asking him about things just now, older Harry asked me to say 'Hi.' And something about 'How about those Cannons?'"

"Cannons?"

"Oh, it's a Quidditch team. Ron likes them, Hermione goes spare if she has to hear about them. He thought she'd have filled you in on them by now. They literally never win anything, but are beloved. They're the Eddie the Eagle of Quidditch. So I guess his joke fell flat." Harry grinned at that. "Oh! I asked him if he wanted to try again and he got all serious. Just now he thought about his godfather, something very serious must have happened with him. Anyway, what he said was that you need to learn things too."

Hermione tried not to look annoyed, but probably failed miserably. "Specifically?"

"Umm, it's a list ..." Harry began.

"Hit me with it, Harry, I'll keep my composure. Older Harry did do great things, after all. Some were terrible, but great things, anyway you look at it."

"Ahem ... 1. A classroom is not a quiz show. Answering all the questions first does no one any good. It just isolates Hermione more, feeds her ego, prevents other students from learning or trying, irritates them and the teacher, and prevents feedback the teacher needs to change how they're teaching, and will give her a reputation as a nightmare."

Hermione had literally been called that in primary school once, and it still smarted.

"Hermione is likely to be near the top of the class all the time. She should therefore wait ten to fifteen seconds, depending on how the class tends to go, to see if anyone else will answer. Only when she's sure of that, and also sure that it's not a routine topic, but one where she can contribute something genuinely educational, should she answer. This will improve her rate of learning and everyone else's, and improve her reputation. On the other hand, if she's unsure of an answer, she should sometimes try it and get it wrong, since that's also part of learning, and sets another kind of good example."

She couldn't escape the feeling that she and older Harry were locked into a cycle of paying each other back, which was one of the things older Hermione had warned her about several times, with quite a few examples, many involving the Potions teacher. But if she wanted to be, and look, more gracious, perhaps she could ignore that intuition and focus on the fact that Potter's advice wasn't terrible, even if it was emotionally wounding.

Harry looked at her sheepishly. She pressed her lips together, and probably looked like she had a headache, but nodded, stiffly.

"2. Since Hermione is emotionally wounded" _Ouch. Maybe girls minds could be read sometimes, too._ "by the hateful attitude of the wizarding community to anything and everything Muggle and Muggle-born, she should set an example by not being endlessly dismissive of anything in the wizarding world, especially things enjoyed mostly by boys, that she is not interested in. Since she wants others to pay attention to her boring topics, she needs to reciprocate. Being a swot is no better basis for a superiority complex than being a pureblood. We all have different ways to make it through the world, and if we can't find mutual respect, we may find mutual ruin."

Before she could respond to _that_ , Harry hurriedly added, "He says there are some, like him and Neville and the girls in your study group, who do admire you for your hard work and intelligence, but a lot more made you cry a lot. He also said it's brilliant you're becoming friends with Luna, because she's wonderful, and you were really rude and dismissive of her, almost as bad as her bullies, the last time around. Oh, he says that's number Three."

Harry cleared his throat again. "3. There are other ways of thinking, not just living. Harry often acts on what seems like dumb impulse, but is actually the result of a lot of conscious and unconscious thought, just not verbalised. His track record for making the right choices, quickly, is better than Hermione's. Similarly, Luna doesn't follow Hermione's logic or methods but often sees things she can't."

Food for thought, certainly. She was hoping there wasn't much more of this, however.

"4. Thanks to the time travel, Hogwarts really is the new start Hermione wanted. She's not going to be lonely and spat upon, and she doesn't have to accept substandard friendships or take any rubbish off anyone. She can be gracious because she is confident, not grudgingly out of fear of being alone. Little Harry has the same issues and they can help each other. Since there won't be a Ron around, they can both be as Slytherin as they need to be to come out on top and make their lives better, since the wizard world really is a big snake pit. She's going to be surrounded by people who believe in her, she needs to do the same."

She could see concern in Harry's face. " _That_ made you cry? Oh ... he says never mind, you'll be fine."

"He's right," said Hermione, smiling despite a tear that had somehow escaped her. On an impulse, she leaned forward and hugged Harry. She knew his history from older Hermione, so she didn't take offence when he stiffened up. She held him for a while, then said, "Breakfast?"


	6. Blood Rituals, Horcruxes, Dark Magic, and Other Light Topics

Hermione was, by now, used to a week or a month's worth of drama happening on a daily basis. She was relieved it was a Saturday, and they weren't due back at Hogwarts until the evening of the next day, so she crossed her fingers and permitted herself to relax. After all, being in danger together wasn't all there was to a friendship. There was also being happy and at peace together. Her fingers were cramped, so she returned to eating. Having just come back from a guest lecture at Mahoutokoro, Mr. Lovegood had elected to have he and Luna, and now their guests, eat a typical Japanese breakfast of steamed rice, miso with tofu and mushrooms, a little grilled smelt and a small amount of tsukemono. It was well-prepared and delicious, and Japanese tea was an interesting change of pace. Harry and Hermione smiled at each other a few times.

After breakfast, while young Harry was studying ahead, aided by his older self and his portrait, the two Hermiones and the Lovegoods worked out how to get the portrait with Hermione's soul into Hermione's room, and hide it when they wanted to talk. In an emergency, the older Hermione could go into another portrait made by Mr. Lovegood, but it wasn't pleasant. She felt compressed and short of breath, even though in reality she could stay in one indefinitely. She would have to sacrifice comfort for mobility, but it would be worth it to cycle between Hogwarts and the Rook. The home portrait would have to be disillusioned by Mr. Lovegood, since shrinking and expanding it would be unsafe.

That pleasant topic, however, led to one that was more disturbing. Hermione asked if blood rituals were really dark magic. Mrs. Lovegood said that was her field of study, and asked if Hermione minded a lecture, which they all knew by now she would not mind.

"The reason that blood rituals are mostly banned has a lot of history. It's not like they alter your soul like truly dark spells do. But when it was more common, you had to make some difficult choices. The other Harry said he could only bring himself back because the required materials were so difficult to obtain. That was much truer in the past. If you wanted to do a blood ritual, you could take the easy path — animal sacrifices — but those rituals only did a certain set of things. If you wanted to go beyond that, if you took the "light" path, you would be fighting with other people. There are only so many good ritual spaces. Unicorns don't grow on trees, and winning their trust and aid is amazingly hard. And we don't even need to go into it with phoenixes, right? And most light path magicians would quibble over treating Veela as material sources, let alone sacrificial beasts. And so on. But if you take the really easy path — human sacrifice — it's really powerful, doesn't alter your soul as fast as most dark spells, and that's the way people mostly went. Hence the ban. And the light path hurts, too, it's mostly a self-sacrificial magic, after all. It cost Harry both parents to stop Voldemort, and that's not surprising. So the Wizengamot and the other magical governments simply said, "no blood magic" and left it at that. Then any rituals allowed, or things like blood quills at Gringotts, were exceptions and no one talked about them. Family magic is pretty sacred, so families with a lot of blood rituals in their grimoires like the Potters were actually at a big advantage for a light-path family. But even that, you won't talk about. That's why Neville told Hermione it was illegal to discuss it. His grandmother, Augusta Longbottom, was exactly right about that. That's the law."

At that, the portrait of Harry chimed in, "Which we aren't breaking because this is the pureblood Lovegood home. Harry, you will want to come over here now, and would you mind relaying what you see to my brother? I was made quite recently, so I know exactly where his mind would be at right about now. You can talk out loud or in your mind, your choice, or mix it up."

Harry looked puzzled, but he got up and moved over next to the portrait. Mr. Lovegood conjured him a chair, and he sat down, not taking his eyes off the painting.

"Okay, first things first. When we did the portrait ritual for me — blood magic, right? — Older Harry felt something leave him, right?"

"He says yes, and he thought it was me at the time."

"Which it wasn't. And it wasn't, thank goodness, our soul, either. But in order to be an individual, with independent thought, I needed a soul, too. So, what do you think, young Harry? Did your older self tell you about horcruxes?"

Harry went pale. "You split our soul?" He got up out of the chair but stopped at a gesture from his painted older double, which was laughing.

"No, not at all," the other Harry said, still laughing. "Let me introduce you to someone."

With that, he pulled aside a curtain, and Harry shrank back and sat down. Shivering and crying on the floor was a ... thing. It looked like a baby homunculus, and Hermione put her hand over her mouth in horror. "Describe it to your older self, Harry," she heard.

Harry did so, then reported, "He says it's Voldemort's horcrux! When you did the painting ritual, you got rid of it?"

Mr. Lovegood nodded, as did Portrait Harry.

"And that, you can tell my brother, is why I have a soul in this canvas. I also have ... this." With that, he pulled on dragon-hide gloves that had been lying on a table next to him, then pulled a large fang out of a pocket in his robes. "Mr. Lovegood did an important goblin an important favour once, and he got this as a reward. A true wizard at portraits can put a single magical artefact into one. It's a sacrifice, but it's not blood magic per se. This thing looks vulnerable, but it's actually as tricky to destroy as the other horcruxes."

"But ... when you do that, won't you die?" Harry wondered. Hermione nodded, as she'd had the same thought.

"Because I'm using his soul-piece to exist?" the portrait asked. "No, because we will wait until ... well, you all know what."

"He says he realises he's going into the portrait at some point, so you don't have to dodge the issue," Harry said.

"Well, that does make things easier," the portrait said. "We'll merge, and I don't think I'll even be an afterimage. And just so you know, I can't wait. Missing _my_ soul has been painful and lonely, although being a portrait is still a unique experience and an adventure. Tell my brother that Hermione and I tried kissing, and while it's not quite like being out there, it's also not bad."

"He's jealous," Harry said. "And not in a good-humoured way."

"Tell him he won't leave younger Harry until both of them have learned what they're supposed to," Portrait Hermione said. "And you can also tell him Pandora and I tried kissing, too. Portraits with souls get much more out of it."

"That's my girl," Mr. Lovegood said.

"It's all for science!" Mrs. Lovegood said, laughing. "Hermione and Harry, this is a very good example of what I was talking about. It's _really_ tempting to have Luna create a portrait of Xeno in a few years, but the normal ones don't activate until after death, right? So the best I could do is go into his portrait and hold my unmoving husband, which isn't worth the trouble. We could do a blood ritual, but what would we use for a soul? One of the horcruxes? That would make us dependent on not destroying them. And splitting a soul, even with a ritual that doesn't involve murder, is _really_ dark magic. Even with the first one, Voldemort became something that's really far from human."

"Mama, are you ... are you alive now?" Luna asked, timidly.

"In a way, Luna-moon, but only because Hermione is spending so much time with me. I will make a habit of being with one or the other of them while they're around, and whenever they can visit, okay?"

It was, Hermione thought, if Luna's expression was any indication. It wasn't like having her mother back, but it seemed it was much closer than before.

Then a thought occurred to her. "Wait, why did I start kissing women, again?"

Her portrait laughed. "You loosened up enough to experiment after all the tosh people threw at you. You really had no patience with intolerance after a while. And Harry didn't mind, either. Also, for my birthday not long before he came back, and after a few drinks, I got Harry to kiss a guy at a pub we were at. Not like he was enjoying it, but that didn't make it any less hot. He's a wonderful boyfriend. For me."

Young Harry looked worse than she felt, so she took his hand, and he relaxed.


	7. The Boys Who Lived

_"I need to get into Hermione's knickers._

_I need to get into Hermione's knickers._

_I need to get into Hermione's knickers."_

_I was in a corridor on the seventh floor that nobody ever uses. I wanted to go somewhere I could pace and mutter to myself, so I just went "wherever," and that's where I ended up. Poor, innocent Hermione had no idea what designs I had on her, of course, which was the bulk of the problem. A vision of her tossing her wild hair, of her sparkling eyes and sweet smile appeared in my thoughts, and I smiled, too. Then I cursed myself for being a lowlife bastard._

_The only thing noticeable about the whole corridor was a sole portrait of some sort of magic circus with a wizard with a whip herding a bunch of trolls wearing dresses. Other than that, it was empty, not even a disused classroom to be seen._

_It must have been my fourth, or perhaps my fifth turn in the corridor when out of the corner of my eye I had a vague feeling I was seeing something in the wall. I turned again, and there it was: an inauspicious looking classroom door. It must have been hidden for some reason, and my pacing must have revealed it somehow._

_Surprisingly, it wasn't locked. When I swung open the door and peered in cautiously, I immediately noticed it was a strangely apt room for the problem I had been worrying over — it was, of course, a library, although a smallish one._

_In front of the stacks was a small table just right for putting my clothing on after I took it off, and a comfortable-looking sofa, and lying on that, lavishly and lovingly illustrated, was exactly the book I would need to solve my Hermione problem:_

_"_ _An Inexperienced Witch's Guide to Resizing Magical Lingerie_ _."_

_And next to that, folded neatly, Hermione's brassiere and pants. If there was a chance of getting through this humiliation without her finding out -- or, at worst -- not hating me forever if she did, it would require spells more delicate than I was used to, after all._

_At any rate, after I pulled them on and got dressed again, I vowed to myself I would never, ever, under any provocation or circumstances, make any future wager with a Weasley twin. The penalties were simply too severe._

_And that was how I found the Come and Go room._

_\--------_

Apparently, Harry had fallen asleep doing homework in the common room, and his older self had experimented with writing "an essay" in his mental landscape. Sure enough, Harry's body had sleep-written that little anecdote, fortunately on a fresh piece of parchment, which was resting on top of Harry's Potions essay.

 _Oh, how humorous_ , _you overgrown adolescent_ , she thought, unconsciously putting her hands on her hips. Still, she needed Harry up and planning their next weekend excursion to the Lovegood home. She gently shook Harry awake and helped him wake up by spelling cold water onto a handkerchief so he could perform the most minimal ablutions before gathering his materials and heading to breakfast.

While eating, she showed him the "essay," and assured him that she had already discussed the Come and Go room with her older self, and it absolutely was NOT how they had discovered the room. Unfortunately for Harry, while he clearly didn't want to offend Hermione, nonetheless he couldn't hold back his laughter at the whole thing. Seeing Harry almost helpless with mirth forced Hermione to smile despite her best intentions. She also warned Harry he must not let his older self do his homework for him, which would be detrimental to his education. Writing up messages and research as he slept would be fine, at need, but no more. And even that was a little disturbing, given Harry had only recently regained control.

Before they finished, Harry said paying for another portrait of Hermione was the least he could do to thank her, and she answered that they could call the first portrait repayment for helping him take his body back, and this one would be repayment for his older self trying to _obliviate_ her memories, so they were even.

”I told your older self I wanted an unlimited budget, but that was for him. Since it’s you, we’ll work out what we want to do together. And both of us can consult our older selves for both school and our problems this year.”

They had decided to leave older Hermione’s portrait at the Rook, as it would help making a second one, and Hermione had had the advantage of consulting her older self for a week, so Harry needed to catch up, anyway. Once the second one was available, Hermione would be able to visit the Lovegoods and catch up with Harry’s portrait whenever she wanted. Mr. Lovegood would disillusion her current portrait and apparate it to the Hogwarts gates, and she could keep it in her bed with the curtains drawn and silencing spells when people might hear them talking. When she was in classes, older Hermione could study and research at the Rook.

They had talked with Ron Weasley on Friday, offering to buy Ron’s pet rat, Scabbers by getting him an owl and a new wand, also throwing in a few Galleons. He jumped at the offer, since he was using a hand-me-down wand that wasn't very effective, and Scabbers was not much of a pet. Mrs. Weasley had picked up Ron from Hogwarts on Sunday and met them in Diagon Alley. Hermione told Ron that Scabbers was getting too fat on a diet of scraps from the Great Hall table, and she was going to put him on a healthier diet. From the rat’s reaction, it almost looked like he understood her, and if a rat could look put out, he did.

To kill two birds with one stone, they begged Ron to talk to Neville about wands, basically asking him to pass on what Ollivander said about the wand choosing the wizard. When they went to Eeylops Owl Emporium, Ron ignored a tiny hyperactive owl that probably would have been all they could afford, and went for a normal, average bird. That still was an enormous improvement on Errol, of course, and, at a loss for a name, he looked up at the sign and named the owl “Eeylops.” Fortunately for him, the shop attendant thought that was good publicity, and threw in a cage and owl treats for free. They discovered that third years often used the floo from the Three Broomsticks to the Glasgow branch of the Emporium to get supplies and have their owl’s health examined, since an owl bought in first year was usually due for it.

Molly Weasley looked thankful for Harry and Hermione’s intellectual curiosity, since they were squaring Ron away better than she’d thought she could, for his first year. Hermione had a hunch that she’d been told about them being mis-sorted Ravenclaws, and that meeting them only confirmed that opinion. The Weasleys seemed pleased when Hermione said she was planning on getting a cat soon, so Scabbers would probably live with the Lovegoods as one of Luna’s pets. As they explained to her, if Percy or Ron wanted to look in on Scabbers, they were right next door, and Luna was brilliant with animals of any sort…

Because she and her older self had managed to get all of their work for the next couple of months at least outlined, they had done the same for Harry in the past few days. As for their reputation as miss-sorted Ravenclaws: Older Harry had insisted on Gryffindor, so they could more easily capture Ron’s pet, and Hermione decided it wasn't worth bickering over. She could still reach out and make friends with and study with anyone she wished. She took most of older Harry’s advice about her behaviour to heart, and it had all made her second week much more enjoyable. In turn, once they'd simply bought Scabbers, both Harrys agreed that the only real advantage left was that Gryffindor needed a Seeker for Quidditch - which Harry wouldn't have time for this year, anyway. Hermione graciously allowed that the request to buy Scabbers might not have worked out as well if they weren't his housemates. And she added that having Harry go into Gryffindor probably made the headmaster happy.

Hermione befriended Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot by offering to study with them, with plans to mention Harry's godfather eventually and ask about his trial. In general, Harry and Hermione socialised without giving up school time, and word got around Hogwarts that they were more or less inseparable. Harry complained that he was seen as being a little eccentric, as he often seemed to space out before answering questions in class. She taught him how to ask his older self questions without apparently losing focus.

Harry and Hermione leaving for the Lovegoods to conduct Potter family business was becoming a routine. If anyone had complained, Hermione would have cited Draco and Pansy doing the same thing (although in truth that had only happened once). Hermione’s new portrait was up the stairs next to Pandora’s. Her original portrait, and Harry’s, were downstairs, and as usual, Mrs. Lovegood and Hermione were sharing a picture frame.

She had already explained to them what the pet rat really was, so Mrs. Lovegood put a ward on the cage and put it in a warded room that would prevent him changing back to his normal form or escaping. At least, with Luna tending him, he would have a good life until Harry decided the time was right to tell the DMLE about him.

Older Harry had apparently made his peace with his portrait self, and was probably eager to get out of younger Harry to be with his Hermione. However, some issues had clearly been smouldering, and while the Lovegoods ate dinner with Harry and Hermione, the three portraits and them had a lively discussion about one of them.

Harry volunteered to pass on what his older self said straight away for a while. He still wanted to explain himself to younger Hermione.

"If the ritual had gone as I wished, but I was merely coming back, let's say, a month, and the net result was you woke up with a month's more memories of the future added on top of the ones you had before I knocked you out, would that be seen as murdering your younger self? Because I can't see it."

She probably looked miffed, though her older self just looked amused. 

"No, of course not. But several years change a person fundamentally, Harry. My memory is extremely good, but it's like most people's, not comprehensive. And I am going to lose lots of memories if I have to integrate those several years. Picture yourself going back a century, Harry, and doing that. Would you really think that wasn't more or less erasing my personality and replacing it with an old woman's?"

"Then, when the Obliviation squads go around cleaning up Muggle sightings of magic, are they murdering Muggles? After all, they're not only getting rid of memories, they're implanting false ones, and on top of that, forcing suggestions on them."

"Well, again, no," acknowledged Hermione. "But if you were to take that to an extreme, like Magical Britain did for a while in the early years — you take children from non-magical homes and then you erase their memories of even having a child and implant years of false memories, you're getting awfully dodgy. And awfully close to a kind of murder of the personality, I should think."

At that, older Hermione put her hand in front of her mouth and looked both horrified and ashamed. Hermione had a sinking feeling something she wouldn't like to hear about had gone on. She reminded herself that seventeen- and eighteen-year old Harry and Hermione had been in the thick of a particularly brutal war, so if they had, indeed, victimised someone in that way, it might have been a life-or-death situation where that was the gentler alternative to outright killing them.

Her older self interrupted, "Well, the entire discussion is moot, and you two should put aside your differences. Neither ritual was what Harry thought it was, and the net result was two sets of souls, not obliviating or restoring memories," she said, with a rather sharp tone.

Portrait Harry agreed with her and added that further philosophical discussions would be enjoyable once they'd covered the business they needed to handle. When they returned to that free-form discussion, with the Lovegoods and the two Hermiones facing Harry and his portrait self, she discovered that she had more in common with older Harry than she'd thought. Time had apparently mellowed her but sharpened him somewhat. She'd become more tolerant and placating, and Harry more uncompromising from their shared experiences. Still, she reflected, portrait Harry had the same personality, yet he mostly showed Harry's tolerant and good-humoured side. 

"People said I should go for Ron, or some did," her older self said, looking indignant, "because, they said, unlike Harry, Ron had a sense of humour and could make me laugh. Dreadful advice and absolutely wrong, I found. Ron was influenced by the twins, but Harry had the Marauders, who were much more entertaining."

When they told everyone about the Come and Go room story, they all laughed, and her older self winked at her.

When they returned Sunday evening, they compared notes in the Gryffindor common room. Harry’s older self had some urgency about things they needed to get started on. But after Hermione said Harry’s parents would have wanted him to focus on school first, older Harry agreed with her. All she had to do, she found, was cite a conversation with older Hermione and older Harry would capitulate every time. It helped, as Hermione had to remind Harry quite often, that in the end his older self had to answer any questions Harry asked him, truthfully.

She hoped Harry wouldn't ask about her older self's response to the _Obliviation_ issue, but he probably would. 


	8. A Grim Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confusion increases geometrically.

Sirius Black was confused, but had nothing left to lose. Probably no other state of affairs would have left him blindly trusting Xenophilius Lovegood. Especially with tasks that were odd even for the famously eccentric wizard. But, he reflected, the fact that he was here, in a ritual space in a cave near Ottery St. Catchpole, was evidence that trusting Xeno was the wisest choice at hand.

It would never have occurred to Sirius that Azkaban’s anti-portkey wards would not stop an animagus in his animal form from being portkeyed out. Of course, he had only spent a day there, but still ... Xeno often behaved as if the laws of magic were arbitrary, but it was still impressive. As a Black, Sirius knew he was participating in a costly and rare blood ritual, but if Xeno was willing to sacrifice to have him go through it, he was eager to pay him back for his freedom.

It seemed to combine things he’d learned couldn’t be combined, when he’d been at Hogwarts. Interestingly, the message smuggled to Sirius in his cell included instructions to memorise the entire ritual, potions to chants. It was quite the ritual, it seemed to combine blood sacrifice, time travel, soul magic and exorcism in a way that defied Arithmantic analysis. If Xeno weren’t insane, he reflected, he might be the cleverest wizard of their generation.

He felt magic rising up, then incredible pain, then everything went dark. When he woke up, he wasn’t in the cave any more, but in a dark, cramped space. He felt completely weak and helpless. He remembered being instructed that he wouldn’t be able to speak, but instead should beat his hands and feet in a pattern that completed the ritual. He remembered it, but it was painful and almost impossible to do. Nonetheless, he felt magic rising up again. 

For whatever reason, his body was not only utterly weak, but highly sensitive to pain. Sirius screamed. Before he blacked out again, he heard a loud voice shouting “I’ll give the little freak something to scream about, you see if I don’t, Petunia!” and a woman’s voice mumbling something like “just a baby.”

This time he woke up in a bed, and less weak, but all his joints ached. Sirius had seen various teacher’s quarters at Hogwarts, but this one seemed more sumptuous than most. It was probably Horace Slughorn’s quarters, he mused. But then he felt something scratchy. He couldn’t believe Sluggy would ever grow a long, white beard.

* * *

The headmaster couldn’t remember being more confused. Somehow, a Death Eater - or worse, Tom Riddle himself, had seemingly kidnapped him, depriving him of the Elder Wand - and everything else — in the process. He was in an enclosed space of some kind. A magical trunk? He heard a giant coming towards his chamber — how had Voldemort gotten enough cooperation from a giant to have one act as a guard? The hole in the ground he was captive in shook with the pounding of the giant. He heard a door unlocking and opening, then felt himself being dragged out painfully by one foot. While his usual aches and pains seemed to have vanished, he felt weak and helpless. It would be a miserable end to one of the Mighty to end up a giant’s supper, he complained to himself.

Strangely, the giant looked quite a bit like little Harry Potter’s uncle, Vermin or something like it. After the creature stopped dragging him and glared down at him, the headmaster realised he’d made a mistake. It was not giants he was dealing with, but Muggles. Wand-less and tiny and weak he might be, but he decided to act decisively. “My good people,” he tried to begin. It came out “Mmma goo pee po!” He felt a stinging pain in his ear. Vermin had snapped His index finger against the headmaster’s sensitive ear, causing him to let out an embarrassing scream.

”Shut up, you freak!” Vermin shouted, snapping the headmaster in the face and ears continuously in the process. The headmaster decided to apparate away. Somehow, it failed. He was in a far worse situation than he’d at first reckoned. 

* * *

The boy freak found himself very far from his cupboard. There was a bright orange crackling thing wherever he was, and its warmth felt wonderful, after how chilly the cupboard could get in November. Still, the boy freak was frightened, hungry, and missed his mother.

Suddenly, a shiny object on the floor of the cave he was in caught the boy freak’s eye. Experimentally, he picked it up and tapped on it. A face appeared in the shiny circle -- so suddenly, the freak almost dropped the precious bauble. It was the face of a man with white hair and a kind face. “Sirius!” he heard the man say. The freak remembered what that meant. “Pa’foo!” He cried out. The man had the biggest smile the freak had ever seen. It reminded him of when he could find his mother and father. “We did it, didn’t we, Harry?” the man said. “I suppose Luna or I will have to watch you until we’re ready.” Suddenly, the man himself was in the cave with the freak. He grabbed the freak by the arm and then everything swirled around. When it stopped swirling, the freak felt sick. 

He saw a nice girl waiting in the little hut he’d been brought to. There was another orange, crackling thing keeping him warm. She looked tiny compared to his mother and father and Pa’foo. The man did, too. “How long before we can bring him To the Rook, father?” She asked. The man said, “My guess is after a week it won’t matter, Luna Moon.” 

The girl turned to the boy freak. “Hello, Harry!” She said. “I am Luna. I hope we will be good friends. No one will hurt you here.” Harry didn’t sound like papa or mama or moony or pad foot. He wondered where Harry was hiding.

* * *

Xeno and Luna had disappeared suddenly and mysteriously. Harry and Hermione were at the Lovegoods’ house yet again, still talking with the portraits. Spending the weekend with the Lovegoods had become their routine. Shockingly, the headmaster seemed to be stymied by Xeno, given how he kept Harry imprisoned and under his thumb in the timeline from before. Xeno explained that, as a pure blood, he understood the rules Dumbledore had been violating, and the rights an Ancient and Noble family had. “Plus,” he’d continued, “I have a lot of blackmail material on him. He’s scarcely what I’d call a leader of the light.”

Suddenly, Pandora started. When she snapped back to herself, she said, “You won’t go back to Hogwarts. We have a limited time to get our affairs in order before things begin to merge.” Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Was this from Pandora being a Seer? Was it just Lovegood eccentricity? Harry saw comprehension dawning on Hermione’s face. She looked at Pandora and Harry and Hermione’s doubles in horror.

”Harry, your godfather is out of Azkaban and being cared for by Xeno and Luna. He’s in no shape to meet anyone, and ... it would be incredibly dangerous for you in particular to meet him right now.”

At that, she turned to Hermione, who seemed to be understanding what was going on. “Albus Dumbledore has decided his own fate, when he decided Harry’s and Sirius’s. Do not pity him.”

”But what about ...” Hermione began. “The Minister’s Specials?” Pandora finished, looking tenderly at Hermione. “It is, believe me, what they would have wanted. The Minister, too, has decided his own fate.”

“But,” Hermione objected, “isn't everything a paradox, dangerous, I mean ....”

”First of all, this house is built as it is to be warded against the effects of shifts in the time stream, Hermione. Your older self should explain that when we have the time for pleasantries. Second, as the prime instigators, we will largely be immune to the effects until a certain amount of time forces a merging.”

"And what happens then?” Hermione demanded.

”Who knows?” Pandora replied.


	9. The Hall of Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I warned you.
> 
> Also, Pandora Lovegood is not the mastermind here, and Dumbledore is not the villain.

He had to think of himself as Potter now. No, Harry. No, Freak. Or Boy on a good day.

It was tempting to see if he could somehow convey to the vile Muggles who he _really_ was. Tempting, for a few seconds.

He had dealt with hard men, heartless brutes much of his life. In Vermin's eyes, he could see a killer. Oh, after he'd slaughtered a baby, and his wife's flesh and blood to boot, he'd be "horrified." And Pansy would bear it in silence for the sake of Dudders. In the past, he'd had uses for men like Vermin, and the thug he suspected Dudders would grow up to be. _After all, everyone deserves a second chance._ He chuckled to himself. Hearing it in a baby's voice sounded unnerving to Freak's tiny ears. As for Gardenia? Looking her over objectively, she wasn't much use. You'd have to put a glamour on her to use her as a lure or a reward, and she was an inept cook, from how the food smelled as it wafted through the cupboard door.

So. Someone had twigged. And turned the tables on _him_. The greatest wizard in two centuries.

They had better not have any need for this body, then. He envisioned "talking back" to the Cursedlies, making sure Harry would be crippled and malnourished. Or, better yet, an Obscurial like Credence or Ariana. He knew first-hand how powerfully that could be used by the "victim," albeit only for a short time. In fact, that would be a power that Tom Riddle didn't know. A much, much greater wizard, such as Gellert Grindlewald, yes. But not Voldemort, who was powerful, but a dabbler in anything but Dark curses.

Yes, he'd do it. It was nothing many boys in his nineteenth-century childhood hadn't managed to suffer through.

He discovered the bad way that, however hard he thought he was, being so as a toddler was completely out. And so, as little Freak washed the cupboard, the kitchen floor and the bathroom with rags, water, and a pungent, stinging chemical brew, he was reduced to plotting his revenge — and staying alive.

* * *

After Pandora's unsatisfying response to Hermione, the Rook was suddenly bustling with activity. Portrait Harry addressed Harry, suddenly. "Ask me in there if he's taught you what you need to know," he said. Harry did so. "He says he's ready to join you," he passed on.

A trap door in the middle of the room they were in opened up, and Xenophilius Lovegood pushed it all the way open. Harry thought he looked tired. He was carrying a small portrait frame, and Harry saw that all the portrait beings had crowded into it.

"Harry and Hermione, it's time," Xeno said. He beckoned to them and then descended. "Hermione, pull on the rope and close the trap," he added. He had accurately predicted Harry would go first, protecting Hermione. _Because you're me_ , he heard his older self think, both amused at and proud of him at the same time.

After the trap door shut, Xeno cast a simple _Colloportus_ on the trap door, which must have unusual properties. It disappeared entirely. Then he chanted something unintelligible as he cut his palm with an athame and held it up to the mouths of four gargoyles, each occupying a corner of the dungeon room they'd descended into. To Harry's discomfort, the gargoyles animated, lapped up Mr Lovegood's blood, then returned to immobility. He suddenly tensed up and felt a little nauseated.

"I think it's ultra-sound, Harry," he heard Hermione say quietly next to him. "We're young enough to hear it, or almost hear it. And some sort of really strong magic, we're feeling that, too. Let's sit." Though there were no chairs, she lowered herself to the cold dungeon floor. She had taken Harry's hand, so he followed suit.

"Little Me, you need to learn a spell now," they heard from the portrait Xeno had hung on a hook near a bench, sink and shelves that were similar to the setup in Potions class. "And you won't like this, but the movement is exactly what you made it when you invented it when we were six years old, Winter Fairy Princess Hermione."

Harry looked over at Hermione, whose face had turned completely red. She was shaking her head vigorously, and her eyes had grown wide. "Hyacinthoides flammae," he heard from the portrait, then "and you wave it in a rainbow arc overhead, then jab forward under the middle of the rainbow." _Wait, she invented that???_ he heard his older self think. He repeated his alter ego's words out loud. It had become a habit by now. 

Older Hermione laughed. "Yes, there are similar spells, so everyone assumed I had just dug up something obscure. You may have noticed how older Harry has me on a pedestal already, so I didn't see the point in telling him I crafted my first spell when I started primary school."

"But ... that was accidental magic!" Hermione objected. Older Hermione laughed again. "You pointed your wand ..." she began. "A dowel with a star on the end," Hermione interrupted. "Pointed your wand, recited an incantation, waved your wand in an intricate pattern, and lo and behold - Bluebell Flames. Nothing really accidental about it. _Winter Fairy Princess Hermione wanted to keep reading her book after her parents switched off the lights,_ " she finished with a stage whisper.

The embarrassment was too much for Hermione, Harry decided. She set her jaw, waved her wand in an overhead arc, said, " ** _Hyacinthoides Flammae_** ," loudly and distinctly, then stabbed her wand forward where the middle of the half-circle created by the arc would have been. Lovely blue flames appeared at the tip of her wand. She aimed the wand at all four corners of the room in turn, and four clusters of flames settled on top of the gargoyles.

As if he'd been expecting that, Xeno waved his hand, and the candles ensconced in holders on two of the walls extinguished themselves. When only the bluebell flames illuminated one of the walls, Harry could see a door appear. He started to stand to inspect it, but Hermione kept hold of his hand, and Xeno shook his head. "There is still one step to take, and you won't much care for it, Harry," he said.

"I am about to attack Hermione here, so let me first disarm her," he said, in a calm, level tone. He produced his wand and made a kind of hook and spiral motion while quietly saying, " ** _Expelliarmus_**." He felt Hermione's hand pull against his as the wand in her other hand was yanked out of her grip. It sailed over to Xeno, who caught it and put it behind one ear.

"It won't be as painful as a _Cruciatus_ , he continued conversationally, "but nearly so." Older Harry suddenly became frantic and demanded control. "Don't let your older self interfere, Harry," he said, giving Harry a very intimidating stare. "It's not his time. It's your time."

"Xeno, dear, you're a fully grown, fully trained, powerful wizard," he heard from the portrait. "Harry would stand no chance protecting her against you."

"You are of course right, as usual, Pan. Any suggestions?"

"Teach him _Expelliarumus_ , to begin with. We all know it's as suited to him as the bluebells are to her."

Mr Lovegood looked at Harry, Harry thought he caught a glimpse of amusement in his eyes and a quirk in the corner of his mouth. As if hurting Hermione - someone Harry had a debt to, depended on, and — more despite his older self than because of him — someone he really _liked_ — was some kind of game." His older self was so frantic that Harry - wielding a power he hadn't known he had — silenced him.

"You only get one chance, Harry," Mr Lovegood said, in an almost kindly way. "You take your wand, hold it up and a little to the right. Move it left an inch, then hook it down. When you are down to your navel, you make a spiral, clockwise. More turns in the spiral are stronger, but you have to act quickly. So many problems!" 

He wasn't even through talking when Harry tried it. He felt a tug-of-war with Mr Lovegood's wand — and Harry lost.

"This will hurt me as much as it does Ms Granger," Xeno continued, still in a calm, conversational manner

* * *

Just when things had settled down and become wonderful, they _changed_. The freak still wanted Mama - and Papa and Padfoot and Moony - but Zeeno and Loona were nice, if tiny, no bigger than him, and they had said they'd take care of him. Plus, they called him "Harry," which had made him remember Mama and Papa doing that. It was a much nicer name than "Freek," and they said it in a nice way, too. But now, they had to visit Loona's "cuzzin." And Harry had to stay there with her. The tiny woman they met had the biggest eyes Harry had ever seen, and she spoke in a funny way. A tiny, old man was staying there, too. He was scary, for some reason. And a tiny man as old as Moony, and a really tiny girl who looked like she was only a little more grown-up than Harry. They both had hair like Mama. The girl's name was Ma-fa-da, so it was easy to say. Her papa's name was Gi-dee-nnn which nobody could possibly say, so Harry called him "Gi'ee." The old man was called Geh-rik, so Harry called him Geh for short.

His new caretaker was called "Sibbo." From having mean caretakers, Harry knew it was all-important not to displease them, so he memorised how to say it. Mafada's papa told him that everyone there was _related_ — like a mama or a papa — to Loona. That was probably why they were all so tiny. After Zeeno and Loona brought "Hawwy" there (no one got mad he couldn't say that "rrrrr" noise), a mama and a papa about as old as Giddee came. They talked so funny, Harry couldn't understand them at all. He knew they were Loona's 'wewatib' because they were so tiny.

* * *

Although he had silenced older Harry, he could still feel his emotions. While he was outraged, older Harry was also _confused_. Apparently, Mr Lovegood wasn't particularly _brave_ where it came to Luna''s welfare, Harry had never seen him be cruel. The idea filtered up to Harry that this was a test. Apparently, wizards like Dumbledore and Lovegood were not just fond of flamboyant clothing and long, impractical hair, but of harrowing tests of Harry's mettle. Harry managed to put himself between an orange-coloured curse and Hermione. It hurt so much his knees buckled. There was no way on Earth he was going to let _that_ hit Hermione. With a determination he didn't know he had in him, he tried again. This time, Mr Lovegood's wand fell from his hand. He moved away from it and drew another.

"What can I throw at him, Hermione?" Harry demanded. "Umm, " she replied. "To stun him, _Stupefy_ , and you slash top to bottom." Harry did so, but the air shimmered in front of Mr Lovegood, and he looked unconcerned. "Okay, umm, there's ' _Urticabasiorum'_ say it all as one word, like urticabasyorum and make a zigzag like you're stitching something. But it's kind of dark, it's the stinging jinx." That, too, failed to make it past Mr Lovegood's shield.

Finally, "Enough," said Mr Lovegood. "Pick up the wand, Harry. It's yours to use as long as you need it." As Harry followed his instructions, he felt his entire hand grow cold. 'Bear with it, Harry. It won't be long now. Put it in the opposite pocket from where you're keeping your other wand."

From the portrait, Harry heard Mrs Lovegood speak. "Congratulations, Harry. Pretty soon, we can explain everything and, finally, we're allowed to help you. Open the door." With trepidation, Harry pocketed the cold wand and pushed on the outline of a door that had appeared in the wall when the candles went out. He saw a hall, to his surprise. In the light from the bluebell flames in the room, he could see an old-fashioned mirror. "What do you see in the mirror, Harry?" Pandora asked. For a fleeting moment, Harry saw two people he assumed were his mother and father, and Hermione, all holding him in the room they were in right then. Then it shifted. He saw himself pull out a small stone and put it in his pocket next to his holly and phoenix-feather wand. And he actually felt it in his pocket!

"I made this elder wood and thestral wand with my wife's cousin," Xeno said, conversationally. "And Xeno and I and Garrick and Xeno''s father and the Flamels made this stone. They are placeholders, really, but friends at Hogwarts got us the real item for you in this respect," Pandora added. From a pocket in his robe, Xeno produced a shimmering transparent fabric, and he handed to Harry with a solemn expression. "This is the Potter family invisibility cloak, Harry. Dumbledore had it, but it belongs to you by right."

"The wand was made to be loyal to whoever won it, Harry," Pandora said. "As for the stone, well ... that was the result of great sacrifice. Xeno's father had a house-elf that was very devoted to him, and she sacrificed a finger to the ritual. We used some of the bones of Xeno's father, and the lifeblood of a Death Eater named Mulciber."

"The stone itself is a Philosopher's Stone of a sort. But the completion of it involved putting it in a cauldron with the blood, bone and finger, and reciting an ancient ritual, performed wearing an invisibility cloak and using the elder wood and thestral wand," Xeno explained. "And, of course, my father's soul went into it." Hermione gasped.

"Hermione and Harry, you should know Xeno's father was dying anyway," Pandora said, speaking quickly. "He'd been cursed by a trap laid by Grindelwald himself, and was hollowed out over the years. Even phoenix tears or unicorn blood couldn't have saved him for much longer. And it's due to his sacrifice that the stone is in both worlds. I think Harry should take it out and turn it in his palm."

With even more trepidation than he'd had opening the door, Harry did so. They could all see the very faint outlines of a man and a woman appear in the hall at the edge of the light from the room. They solidified a little, and Harry and Hermione could see a man that looked a little like Harry mouthing something. Very faintly they heard the woman say, "Do what you must, Harry." Then they vanished.

"It isn't the proper Resurrection Stone, and this wand is not the Elder Wand, Harry, but they'll do for our purposes. But that cloak you have in your hand is, indeed, Death's own cloak," Xeno added. "And I would know."

"No one on Earth, even Grindelwald or Dumbledore, knows as much about the Hallows as Xeno does," Pandora said, sounding somewhat proud of him.

"Hermione," older Hermione said from the portrait, "we'll need bluebell flames as Harry marches forward."

"Harry," they heard portrait Harry's voice say, "as you walk forward, hold the elder wand in front of you and when you take your first steps, say, " ** _I, Harry James Potter, am the last of the Peverells, and I keep faith as a Servant of Death_**."

Harry looked at Hermione. She looked back. Finally, she shrugged.

Hermione cast the bluebell spell again, pointing the flames to the right and. Left as Harry moved forward, reciting the expected words. They could now both see what the hall contained. On both sides, they saw bodies lying in what looked like open caskets. Harry's hand burned with the cold of the wand, his mind was still whirling over the idea that he'd just seen his parents' ghosts, and the bodies almost broke his nerve. Hermione gave voice to what he was feeling when she suddenly said, "and the Lovegoods are considered a _Light_ family." Involuntarily he gave a short laugh.

After Harry's recitation, they'd felt magic rising in the hall. The bodies in the caskets, if it wasn't a trick of the flickering light, seemed to start to breathe. Suddenly, they were startled by an inhuman shriek coming from the portrait. "Turn the stone again, Harry!" Older Hermione called out. When he did so, he saw the woman from before approach from the hall. He felt a warm feeling as the woman hugged him, then she climbed into the portrait and, somehow, squeezed herself in, becoming smaller as she disappeared. Then a dark smoke poured out of it. The woman reappeared. Again, she said, "Do what you must, Harry."

For no reason Harry could guess, Hermione looked very upset. The three of them were gathered in front of one of the caskets. Apparently sleeping inside of it was a woman that looked like a somewhat older version of Mrs Lovegood. Xeno held the portrait in front of her. "Poor Selene," they heard Pandora say, "she not only wouldn't give in to them, she could not. And of course, they knew that." "It was Mulciber who grabbed her, Mulciber who left her in that cell, bound, with the door left open. It's his younger brother, the Death Eater, who has cost so many, so much. It was Mulciber's lifeblood that fed the resurrection stone. And the family has only begun to atone. Little Me, Harry, what we are doing is right."

"It's also history, Harry," Portrait Harry said. "What Hermione and Pandora and I and your mother's spirit accomplished — nothing like it has ever been done, as far as we know. The evil he imbued the piece of his soul with, using your mother's murder, she removed by her right of vengeance. Voldemort arranged for Pandora's death, though Dumbledore was told about his goal and said nothing to keep his source safe, and because the Lovegoods won't obey him. And Hermione and I have nothing but injuries from Tom Riddle - that's Voldemort's real name."

"I wouldn't have wanted to live using a Horcrux," Pandora said, and to older Harry, who was subdued but still broadcasting his thoughts and emotions, she sounded exactly like her daughter at her dreamiest. "But what I am working with now is a newborn soul. It's eager to merge with my essence, my memories. It seeks experiences. It makes being in a portrait more frustrating, but also infinitely richer."

"It's wonderful you're back, Mrs Lovegood," Hermione said, although her tone was almost as if she didn't mean it. "But you can't do what I think you mean to do. It's a sacrilege. She wouldn't — couldn't possibly have wanted this."

"And that's where you're wrong, Miss Granger," Harry heard a woman's voice say, from the other end of the hall. "Unsurprising," she continued. "I just have to take one look at you and young Mr Potter there to tell neither of you has even a trace of Second Sight. Indeed, your Inner Eyes are as blind as the proverbial bat." From the exclamations from the portrait, Harry gathered her name was "Professor Trelawney," and "Sibyl." "And the reason I know what she would have wanted is that she told me. Pandora's cousin, Selene Trelawney, was my younger sister."

"She had the Sight, Hermione," Pandora's voice said. "We all did — me, Sibyl, Luna - but Selene was the strongest of all. That's why the Minister and his Death Eater masters wanted her. To control her. That's why she was a target."

"She foresaw this moment, Little Me," older Hermione said. "And the moments afterwards, too."

"All you need do now, Harry, is hold the elder wand over Selene's body and say ' ** _mentis et animi corporisque,_** ' and the Lovegood family will be forever in your debt," Xeno said, as calmly as he'd said everything else that night. "Do it, Harry," he heard older Hermione add.

His nerves were finally settling. He managed to fulfil Xeno's request without either his hand or his voice trembling. He saw Pandora Lovegood's ghost leave the portrait exactly as his mother's. It drifted over to Selene's body and, to his surprise, kissed her. With that, she was drawn into Selene's mouth, shrinking down until she vanished. They all remained silent, including the professor, who had tears in her eyes but a neutral expression on her face. Minutes passed.

Suddenly, with a loud intake of breath, Selene's eyes opened. "Welcome back, Pan," Xeno said. "I would get used to calling her Selene, Xeno," the professor said. "That's who she is, legally. And in the next life, do you want to deal with two Pandoras?"

Xeno just smiled. "I see no reason to prefer two Selenes -- well except to show our gratitude. Selene it is."

"Mr Potter, Miss Granger, you know nothing of our world. The Kissed are not listed as dead, any more than those who lost their minds and are in the James Thickey Memorial Ward for the Spell-Damaged at St. Mungo's are. The old pureblood laws won't even let them challenge Selene 'somehow' recovering her soul. We merely refuse to discuss it. We can drop hints that she was only partially Kissed, or we destroyed the dementor who did it with a ritual. But we don't even have to bother."

"This must have been planned for -- for _years_ ," Hermione said. The night had not been easy on her.

"Yes, after my sister's victimisation, I was left to carry on planning," Trelawney explained. "I not only had to do that, I had to make it appear as if that was the last thing on Earth I was capable of doing. Fooling the Ministry is one thing, but throw in Dumbledore and the Board, and it's no wonder my drinking habit is so realistic. Although if I never drink sherry again, I'll be at peace. It's such nasty, vile stuff."

They heard Selene's voice — well, Pandora using it — for the first time. "My cousin — or rather, going forward, my sister — is indeed a competent planner. Love. Souls. Time. Death. These are the most complex things in the entire realm of magic. And keeping track of who's in what body, when, in which time-line? That's not the province of airy creatures like Sybil and me. For that, we needed someone who could concentrate on myriad minute details without falling asleep, or going spare." She winked. They heard footsteps approaching.

"And that's where I come in,"a man said, as he stepped into the light from the end of the hall. His hair was more orangish than Harry's mother's hair, and he seemed a bit cocky to Harry. "Gideon Prewett-Lovegood. I am at your service — and I ... am an accountant!"


	10. Rebirth

"Actually," the red-headed man continued, I am just here to report on thebasement. And hand ... Pan? Selene, pardon me," he grinned, "the final diagrams."

Hermione couldn't make heads or tails of the sketch he showed Mrs. Lovegood. "It's a diagram of the same ritual Older Harry used," she heard younger Harry say. Her outrage must have shown on her face.

"It's worse than you think," Mrs. Lovegood said. She sounded amused.

"What she means," she heard her older self say, "is that we're popping souls willy-nilly through time and space. But in your case, Harry didn't know he was doing it, and so he didn't have any place to put... you. That's where Gideon comes in to it. "Gideon!" She continued, are you going to fetch Luna?"

"Am I?" That man replied, looking at Xeno and "Selene."

"I believe so," Xeno said. He looked over at his wife. "Yes," she said. It's all accounted for. The next phase will be a little hard on Harry and Sirius, but it's necessary. "

The redhead disappeared back into the hall. Hermione, who liked to observe everything obsessively, struggled to make out his shape. It was clear he was opening yet another trap door. She realised they weren't in the real basement of the Rook. A few minutes later, Luna returned. When she saw "Selene," she started to cry. "Welcome back, mommy," she whispered.

"Have you told them?" Luna asked her parents, startling and somewhat unnerving Hermione. All three Lovegoods looked over at Harry, Hermione and the portrait.

“It’s Time,” said Xeno. Hermione had read about someone talking in capital letters, but only now did she understand what they meant.

“It’s literally Time, Harry and Hermione," said Selene.

"We won't dare try soul-moving of any sort when we know the flow of time is already changing outside. We're still so entangled," Luna patiently explained.

"Are we supposed to be involved in this?" Hermione wondered.

"Yes, of course," Mrs. Lovegood said. "Hermione has already participated, as has older Harry. And portrait Harry and Hermione for that matter."

"I promise this is the last time, Hermione," Luna said, as she hugged her tightly. She wasn't being urged on by her older, inner self anymore, but it was nonetheless comforting. With that thought, she gripped Harry's hand, as firmly as one of Luna's hugs.

If older Harry had been forced to eat crow, perhaps she had, too. She was no longer prone to jump to the conclusion that rituals were dark and evil, or that wizards and witches had bad intent by default if they weren't recognised and respected authority figures.

Luna took Hermione's free hand, and they all went into the dark hallway. They were nearly at the far door, and the trap door behind it. In one of the alcoves, side by side, were a young man and woman, approximately the age of Hogwarts seventh-years. The man had red hair and green eyes similar to Gideon's. The woman was a dark blonde with brown eyes.

"His name is Henri Prewett," said Gideon Prewett-Lovegood, who had returned with a couple who looked to be his age, "and he was my nephew."

«And she is our daughter, Cymbeline Malfoi» Hermione heard the woman say in French. With rather wild brown hair and soulful brown eyes, she reminded Hermione of her own mother. The man, on the other hand, looked a little like Lucius Malfoy. It wasn't hard to guess that he was from the French branch of the Malfoy line.

"They were together," said Gideon. "We assumed they might possibly be victims of a Minister's Special if we resided in Wizarding Britain, because we couldn't hide our opposition to the Fudge and Umbridge corruption and tyranny. However,they were both of age, and both chose to accompany their families. The Malfois were here in a diplomatic capacity, trying to undo the damage the Malfoys had done to the family name with the ICW, and I was hired to work with the goblins on mostly-Muggle-invested accounts. Our families knew each other through them, and we all took great precautions against being ambushed or attacked. The Minister's corrupt aurors collaborated with Death Eaters, and thugs hired by them, and they took extreme measures to capture them. Henri and Cymbeline knew my relatives, the Lovegoods, practiced soul magic, and they wrote out their wishes that if one of them was Kissed by dementors, that their body should be donated to someone in the Resistance to the current corrupt regime. Or even a ghost, if one could be found that was trustworthy. Cymbeline mentioned Helena Ravenclaw, whom you know as the Grey Lady. I think Hermione is a good fit for that."

«It is even as he says» the man added. «I do not speak much English, but I understand enough to assert that.» Hermione explained to Harry what the couple had been saying. He looked at her in shock as what was being proposed dawned on him.

Surprisingly, Hermione did not feel as if she had a right to object. They couldn't restore the two young people. If they objected, they were advocating that the parents and uncle of the victims cared for their soulless bodies for no reason. "It's not up to us, Harry," she said, in what she heard as a sad voice. "It's up to them."

"But doesn't that make us guilty, too, if we're needed for the ritual?" Harry asked.

"I don't think so," Hermione replied. She thought it over. "I think I am too quick to judge. I think they know what they're doing, and how morally complicated it is. I think they made their peace with all that already."

"But how will we all co-exist?" Was Harry's next question. That was an easy answer. "Much the same way we have been. Just that older Harry will be Henri and older Hermione will be Cymbeline. Eventually, we will all think of them that way. But what I am curious about is what Selene is using for a soul."

Pandora/Selene answered, "Voldemort's horcrux. Hermione - maybe I should say Cymbeline - and I and portrait Harry confounded it into letting my identity piggyback on top of it, but it's fighting it. But don't worry. As I said, all these issues have to be resolved before the future shifts, and they will be."

In stark contrast to his menacing, if composed manner when threatening Hermione, Xenophilius Lovegood now looked very sympathetic, and somewhat worried. "It won't be," he began, then paused. "It won't be pleasant. But Harry and Hermione, you have what it takes, I think. For better or worse, you are the stuff heroes are made of."

"This is quite the event, you two," Pan-Selene said. Or was it Volde-Pan Selene? Harry shuddered. No, Pan-Selene would do just fine. "It's the kind of thing that goes on your permanent record. It's enormously more important than finding all 12 uses for dragon blood."

Twenty-five, he felt older Harry say. "Umm ..." he began, "older Harry says he found at least another 13. He kind of became a bit of a fanatic about blood when he decided to go back in time, and he had Luna and Hermione and the Potter and Black libraries just sitting there..." he continued. "So it's 25 uses," he finished lamely.

All the adults laughed. "That absolutely needs to go on Dumble's chocolate frog card," Gideon said with a smirk.

"What we'll accomplish with this make-shift, extremely dangerous, painful and exhausting ritual will include the redemption and Obliviation of a horcrux, the merging of a soul with his portrait representation, the restoration to bodies of two disembodied time travellers, the release of a soul sacrificially trapped in an artefact, the destruction of two near-Hallows, the creation of a second soul with the same personality as one that has gone beyond, a partial binding of you two, thank goodness you get along better than Hermione and older Harry, an increase in magical stamina for Harry, Hermione and Luna, Luna can already read your auras and know what you're feeling but she'll probably be doing passive Legilmency on you both after it's over .... what else ... Harry and Hermione will each have a de facto sibling now for blood purposes ... oh, we have to all go to the loo before we start, we'll be lying unconscious for a couple of days, we have to put water nearby ... that's most of it ..."

"And then," said Xeno, "while we're unconscious, outside the Rook, the flow of time will be diverted into a little fewer than twenty new channels ... is it an enneagram? Anyway, time changing, and the Malfois and Gideon will be out there with Sirius, we've already made one change and I could feel that one through the wards, so i am confident everything will work out fine,"

"Since it already has," Luna interrupted. When Pan-Selene had explained the ritual, the three young people had huddled together in fear, even Pandora and Xeno's daughter, and she had said scarcely a word since appearing. Now, apparently, she was suddenly in charge. "Join hands, everyone," she said, simply. Matching action to words,she grabbed Harry's hand. Hermione felt Harry grip her hand with a little bit of tension. Xeno took Luna's free hand, and Pandora-Selene took his, and Harry's.

"Give us ten minutes," they heard Gideon say, as he and the Malfois left down the hall. No one said anything, so it was a long ten minutes. Luna's face showed no trace of impatience. Suddenly, she spoke up. "All of this ritual is in the preparation, Harry and Hermione. To set it off, I only need to say a single word." She looked them in the eyes, each in turn. Unsure of what else to do, Harry and Hermione both nodded.

Hermione heard Luna say, "Punarjanman" which sounded like Hindi to her. Then blackness swept over her. She managed to crumple to her knees, and she felt Luna support her as she lay down on the floor. And that was the last thing she was aware of.


	11. Conclusion

Tom Riddle, 5th-year Slytherin prefect, was packing his trunk. Given he had no family, he had been permitted to travel to the Leaky Cauldron to rent a room. He would be staying with Abraxas Malfoy and Caractus Nott over the summer, and planned to exchange training with their families. He had pointed out that he was the last of the Gaunts - which was true — and the last of the Peverells, which was true unless the rumours about Fleamont Potter’s family were proven correct, so he wouldn’t be called on a lie. As such, he indicated, he had Slytherin family magics to exchange with the Notts and Malfoys. He was under no obligation to tell them where he learned it.

He had more or less made up his mind who would be the sacrifice next year. Myrtle Warren, a painfully shy Ravenclaw, who often went to the bathroom where the Chamber entrance was to cry for hours. The only person who talked to her was Olive Hornsby, a perpetual bully who wasn’t popular or high-ranking, but enjoyed having Myrtle to torment. It would take time to see if she could be a useful temporary ally, or, like Myrtle, fodder. She was someone who would not be missed, though it would be a matter of hours or a day before she was missed. If Myrtle died on a Friday, it would be well into the next week before anyone noticed and asked about her.

He had had a trial run letting the basilisk out into the bathroom. No wards in the castle had gone off — proving the basilisk had been accepted by the castle wards when it was hatched by Slytherin. Probably for that reason, neither Dippet nor his deputy, nor Dumbledore the sneak, for that matter, had acted in any unusual way around him.

He decided to remove any wards he’d placed around the bathroom. He then dirtied up the entire wall around the fixtures and summoned water from the toilet and splashed it all around so the house elves would eventually clean it and make it look like no one had tampered with it.

He felt a twinge, and a surge of magic, as he grabbed his trunk with his sparse possessions. Were the wards examining him, he wondered? Had Dumbledore persuaded the headmaster to scan him? Any dark objects he was bringing were in mokeskin bags, and those inside boxes with runes that nullified magical detection. Whatever it was passed, though he still had an eerie, unsettling feeling.

Tom had planned on shoring up his social connections on the ride home — as all Slytherins did — but found himself _compelled_ to seek out an empty compartment in the very back instead. He felt his magic leaving him and a _Colloportus_ locking the door. He saw the reflection of two red lights in the compartment window, and realised belatedly they were his eyes.

Whatever demonic entity had possessed him didn’t scruple about overwhelming him. He was unconscious within seconds of realising he was being taken over. When he woke, he was in a Void. He couldn’t see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch anything. Had he died? It seemed to be a sort of Limbo.

_Greetings, my younger and stupider self._

He didn’t so much as hear a voice as sense a thought. This was an entirely new “sense.” Forcing it into another mould would be unwise. If it wanted to communicate with him, then it followed he might still get some advantage, however small, by controlling the communication.

_Permit me to debrief you, Tom-fool_.

Since he couldn’t touch anything, it wasn’t pain he felt. Just discomfort. But it was a sanity-threatening amount of discomfort. All of his memories were dredged up and sorted and examined. He had no means of telling the passage of time, but an intuition suggested it all happened very quickly.

_Let me show you where your plans led you, youngling._

While it wasn’t quite the same thing as having his sight restored, Tom suddenly “saw.” He saw himself readying to leave an old Muggle manor. Around him was one of the Malfoys, a Nott, and a rather crazed if attractive woman who looked a great deal like Druella Rosier. He recognised none of them. More evidence that this might truly be a vision of the future. 

As he examined “himself” in a mirror, Tom was horrified. He looked like a half-breed Naga. He had no idea what ritual would do that, nor could he conceive of wanting to. It was probably some bizarre Salazar Slytherin thing — perhaps learned from the journals of Herpo the Foul. Clearly, whatever the gains, it would preclude enjoying his triumphs as a human wizard. Still, if he had chosen this freely, it was probably well worth it. He could sense much more power than he had himself at this age. Much more than Dumbledore, he estimated. Perhaps this was the battle where he had triumphed against the old fool.

Then again, if he had triumphed, would he have done whatever this time ritual must be? The Hallows. Dumbledore must have them. That lunatic Lovegood had probably located them for him. Not only had he thwarted Tom several times at Hogwarts, but he had protected the Trelawney boy when Tom had planned to make him pay for showing him up in Ancient Runes. Some nonsense about his future son needing a Trelawney girl to complete the pattern. Since the patterns Paraxeni saw included things like Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and heliotropes, it was a safe bet that he was spouting nonsense, but even Tom had to admit he was the best warder among the Hogwarts students.

Well. It looked like he had set himself against Dumbledore the Master of Death, and all of wizarding society, with a handful of followers. And he was calling Tom foolish. Well, if he was not lying, then they were the same person. The perspective shifted. His future self, if that’s what he was, had the Elder Wand clearly visible in his right hand, and the wand Tom was familiar with in his left. Clearly, he had taken it from Dumbledore. Additionally, he noticed dead wizards, and allies like centaurs and mermen, scattered around the grounds of Hogwarts and the edge of the lake. So, he had triumphed after all. The mystery deepened.

He was just about to kill some girl who looked to be a seventh year, and must be very powerful. Suddenly, he was blocked by a shield. He whipped around to see a boy who looked a little like Charlus Potter grimly pointing a wand at him. He cast a killing curse from his off hand, which created a ball or cage of magic between him and the boy — not something Tom had ever heard of. Then with his right hand, using the Elder Wand, he cast his death curse for effect. It was a sound strategy if the boy had achieved some sort of lock on Tom’s wand. Then he “felt” the curse rebounding and his body being shredded. As he fell, he “heard” himself reciting a ritual incantation in his mind. He had carried out all of the ritual before, to no avail. Still, he had started from the beginning before going into battle, and this recital was the last part of it. He could see through his now wraithlike form the look of grim satisfaction in the boy’s face. His older self, he could sense, didn’t have high expectations. Pushing through the barrier of time had proven impossible even at his full strength, let alone as a wraith. However, the fact that his soul was already separated, weightless, with no hindrances to travel left him with some hope. Ironically, he found that something had already broken the barriers of time, and he could simply slip through in its wake.

And there they were.

* * *

In the years ahead, Tom abandoned all the plans he'd had. His Occlumency was good enough to constantly keep surface thoughts at the top of his mind, but prevent deeper Legilmency from uncovering his secrets. Once, he let slip that he was participating in an attack on a first-year Gryffindor, mainly due to fear of Abraxus, who was now a Seventh Year. Dumbledore, who was nearby, hadn't reacted, but the plot had later been foiled by the nosy Transfiguration professor. When Caractus and Abraxus had accused him of snitching, he had revealed his suspicion that Dumbledore had scanned his mind. The result was Tom being subjected to several brutal Occlumency "lessons" from other Slytherins, and he "let slip" that information the next time he was around Dumbledore. The professor wasn't as suspicious of Tom after that, even when the boy avoided meeting his eyes.

He didn't have to manoeuvre much to be head boy, and Slughorn's favourite Slug. Being half-blooded, he apprenticed to a minor apothecary, and somewhat apologetically took an apprenticeship at Borgin and Burkes. It created the picture of an impoverished but brilliant half-blood finding his feet under him after Hogwarts. When Burke and Borgin invited him to join the Knights of Walpurgis, he begged off, citing his fear of the Aurors. A good thing, too.

As he expected, Dumbledore was called away from Hogwarts to handily defeat what most people considered the greatest wizard in the world, Gellert Grindlewald. His younger self learned that Dumbledore had not even had the Elder Wand before the duel with Grindlewald. More surprisingly, the last Hollow had been retrieved only after Dumbledore relinquished one of the Hallows to a descendant of Ignotus. He had clearly waited until the boy, like his father, would trust him enough to relinquish it to him once he found the tomb of Cadmus Peverell. But Tom's older self had found the tomb first, and bound it to the Gaunt family ring with an ingenious curse that eventually led to the end of Dumbledore. The professor, by then the headmaster, had gotten one of Septimus Weasley's descendants to get the Cloak out of the Potter Boy's trunk — his older self read that much from the redheaded boy at the Ministry's Department of Mysteries - but for whatever reason, perhaps because he was not a Peverell, having all three seemed not to have staved off his death.

This time around, there would be no Horcrux nonsense. He would explore and exploit all the better methods of ensuring his mortality without turning into a monstrosity. But cursing the Stone was still a necessary step. The remnant former Knights of Walpurgis remembered him as a reliable potioneer with good judgment for his age: they had cast their lots with the German Grindlewald and it had cost them their family wealth to avoid Azkaban in the aftermath.

All in all, Tom Riddle, who mostly went by his middle name of Marvolo, was a rising star that rose so slowly and quietly he avoided notice. He was trusted by the Dark. The Neutral had no misgivings about him. The Light at least saw him as no threat. Patience, he often told the younger self trapped inside him, was a virtue.

* * *

All roads to his desired future led through Hogwarts. That much was clear. And this time around, Headmaster Dumbledore would have no legitimate objections to hiring him as DADA professor. As a favour, he'd gotten Borgin himself to slip into Hogwarts and put a very mild and completely unfindable rune curse on the office of the Defense professors. It didn't force them to leave: it merely made them tend to want to after a year or two. 

It was with great anticipation that Tom watched the gargoyle move aside, opened the door, and saw Dumbledore sitting there, looking composed and friendly. Not enough anticipation. He felt a blast of magic from behind, then nothing.

When he came to, he was in excruciating pain. Dumbledore was liberally dosing his shredded body with vials of Phoenix Tears. At least he had some hope; he resolved to play dead as much as possible looking for a chance to turn the tables. Clearly, Dumbledore had not given up his suspicions, and the interview was a trap. Fortunately, he couldn't possibly guess he was dealing with a wizard internally many decades older than he appeared.

Just then, he noticed there was another, quiet figure there. A man — no, a boy, really — with greasy hair and a beaky nose, with a pallid complexion and sunken eyes. Something struck Tom, and he cautiously reached out with his magic. It was a Muggle. If it had been him, a Muggle would be the life source for powering a ritual, but what Dumbledore had one there for was beyond his comprehension. Therefore, it was the most frightening part of his predicament. 

The surprise made Tom start back — only, his body stayed still. Not wasting magic, he, again cautiously, used his mage sight. He was bound by dark ethereal chains. Not the sort of thing you associated with Dumbledore. When he followed the chains to Dumbledore's desk, he noticed another set were binding the phoenix! Tom had a sudden insight. This was not at all the wizard he'd expected to meet.

"We are both busy wizards, Tom," the headmaster said, after he had fixed the worst of the damage. "I now realise you are my mortal enemy. I cannot let you leave alive."

Tom's thoughts turned to panic.

"That is to say, if you were to voluntarily bind yourself to my service, it wouldn't be wildly irresponsible to let you leave alive. Sadly, both of us know that Unbreakable Vows won't take unless freely given. I would not deny myself the pleasure of a conversation, but sadly, Tom, you must take your leave. I wish you all the best in the Next Great Adventure."

"It will .... it will be freely given!" the younger Tom would have shouted in outrage hearing what his older self had his mouth say. But no one would or could hear him rage.

"How surprising, Tom. I knew you had achieved wisdom, but at such a young age, to be so prudent? Well, well. But as I said, we are both busy wizards. I would wager you didn't know a mere Muggle could be a Binder, and perhaps they cannot. But my suspicion is that Tobias, here, is distantly a Squib. At any rate, he has had a few encounters with our kind, and he is not fond of us. Is that not so, Tobias?"

The quiet man spoke up. "The only thing they done wrong in the burnings is letting any of you live to devil the normal ones."

"Tobias is a most useful ally, Tom. He helps me for fair wages. I have been meaning to tame and get control of the Prince line for a while now. I have shown images of the girl Eileen to young Tobias here, and he has found her fair for a witch."

Sickened, Tom noticed a lecherous smirk appear on the homely Muggle's face.

To sweeten the deal, I have assured him that once he has wedded and bedded the girl, who I predict will suddenly be the last of her line at that point, he can do anything non-fatal to her that he wishes — she will be rendered incapable of performing any harm to him, even in self defence. The same goes for any progeny they may produce, though he cannot render them incapable of having more heirs. Any such children with such formative years should have the same love for Muggles later in life that Tobias here has for Wizard-kind. I tell you, Tom, there is nothing so loyal and useful as a self-hating Half-blood. I have similar plans for young Fleamont, but if he cannot be separated from his dear, dear Euphemia, it is of no account. I will simply move my plans to the next generation. You, yourself were immensely helpful securing the half-breed Hagrid to my service. I do thank you for that, and it makes me warm inside to think I can repay you with your life."

And with that, Tom was given no time to plot, plan or delay. He was, well and truly, Bound. Of course he did have one ray of hope.

"To show initiative in a young man is so attractive a trait," the headmaster said, after Tom looked up at him with impotent rage. To his horror, the headmaster was stroking his face and smiling at his anger. His Master offered Tom a lemon drop, which he found himself eating without much thought or volition. The disgust he felt towards the headmaster was muted by the potion. He would resist just enough to titillate the man, but no more.

"So the first task you will help me with is, of course, controlling your younger self with another Vow."

_What?_

"Come, come, even when I was your apparent age, I could detect two minds and personalities in one body, Tom," he said, conversationally. "And speaking of such, open yours — fully. I can already see from what I've pulled out of you so far that my plans must all be radically altered. The Future - such a fascinating place, is it not .... VOLDEMORT?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I was going to end this with the first few paragraphs as a short cliffhanger. For a story to be a story, the Other Side must get its licks in, too, and here they are. Plotting and planning years before James, Lily, Xenophilius, Pandora, Sirius and the others are even born! Now, to refresh your memory and explain one or two things.**
> 
> **The 17- and 18-year-old Harry and Hermione from our timeline are in the bodies of Cymbeline and Henri. The personality of Harry in the portrait had merged with our Harry before they achieved a body. Pandora Lovegood is in the body of her cousin, Selene. The younger Harry and Hermione of the current timeline are in a warded room that is not subjected to interference with the flow of time outside of itself.**
> 
> **The soul of the Harry Potter from 1981 who was sent to the Dursleys is currently in Sirius' body after it spent ten years in Azkaban but was broken out by Xeno Lovegood. Sirius' soul from 1981 instead of experiencing ten years in Azkaban was moved to the body of Harry, then Dumbledore. There, he prepared for the time when Harry would arrive at Hogwarts He was briefly transported to Azkaban in 1991 to make room for the Dursley-raised headmaster soul to touch base with its 1991 body, then restored. He will make sure Harry's Hogwarts years are fun but challenging. And he deeply enjoys ordering Snape around. The soul that was in Dumbledore's body in 1981 was shifted to Harry's 15-month-old body in the cupboard under the stairs at Privet Drive.**
> 
> **The soul that came to Harry's body from Dumbledore's body, finally looking forward to freedom at Hogwarts after ten years under the Dursleys, is instead spirited back to 1981 just in time to inhabit Sirius' body in Azkaban, thus existing in two places at once, simultaneously. Don't worry, they won't have contact with each other.**
> 
> **Meanwhile, Harry, having spent ten years being taught in the body of a powerful adult wizard, will feel a little disappointed when he has to start Hogwarts in such an emaciated, abused, weakened and above all young body. He's gotten quite used to Sirius' body, including its memory of being a Grim animagus. Harry has just learned how to become a Grim, and now he has to start over training a new body!**
> 
> **Thus, in 1981 we had two headmaster souls, one Sirius, and no Harry. In 1991 we had two Harrys, one in Sirius' body and one in his own, one Sirius in Dumbledore's body, and no headmaster's soul. In 1991, after ten years in Azkaban, the headmaster will jump to Dumbledore's 2001 body. Meanwhile, nothing at all will happen to Harry in 2001, and Sirius will jump to his own body. And the circle is complete.**  
>  **Meanwhile, the headmaster, Voldemort and Tom, back in the 1950s, only know the timeline Harry and Hermione came from. They have no knowledge of the timeline being built by the Lovegoods, Trelawneys, Weasleys, Potters and Grangers. On the other hand, the time-manipulators in the Rookery have no idea of the wave of time changes approaching their timeline from the time before they existed.**  
> 
> 
> **Aberforth will be a valuable ally helping them make sense of the world they will emerge into. And Gellert Grindlewald will be a central figure in the next volume. I reiterate: the headmaster has his reasons, and this is not, on balance, an anti-Albus Dumbledore series. As to that, it will only have two volumes. And Part II will be a great deal shorter.**


End file.
